As a person relatively new to D&D and with absolutely no connection to, reverence for, or even much understanding of "Dragonlance", and whose understanding of the things in question comes from basically this thread alone...
The idea of an anarchic kleptomaniacal species with "no concept of personal property" is an immediate red flag to my DM brain. That pretty much screams "terrible rogue memes" to me, and a player who comes to me all bright-eyed with a kender rogue, bard, or a kender anything with the Criminal background is getting a sit-down, a talking-to, and a very intense Fry Meming. That's the sort of thing that seems tailor-made to capital-letters Cause Problems at the table. I totally get people having a nostalgic enjoyment for the books and wanting a chance to play their nostalgia, but someone who says to me "My character comes from a species with no concept of personal property and no real understanding of law or government, and nothing you say will convince me to play anything else"?
The key thing to remember is that they have a variation of kleptomania. They don't 'steal' deliberately or because something is valuable. They absentmindedly pick up interesting things, colours and textures. A shiny hair clip or a funny purple feather willbe picked up while a boring gold coin will be ignored.
As a person relatively new to D&D and with absolutely no connection to, reverence for, or even much understanding of "Dragonlance", and whose understanding of the things in question comes from basically this thread alone...
The idea of an anarchic kleptomaniacal species with "no concept of personal property" is an immediate red flag to my DM brain. That pretty much screams "terrible rogue memes" to me, and a player who comes to me all bright-eyed with a kender rogue, bard, or a kender anything with the Criminal background is getting a sit-down, a talking-to, and a very intense Fry Meming. That's the sort of thing that seems tailor-made to capital-letters Cause Problems at the table. I totally get people having a nostalgic enjoyment for the books and wanting a chance to play their nostalgia, but someone who says to me "My character comes from a species with no concept of personal property and no real understanding of law or government, and nothing you say will convince me to play anything else"?
The key thing to remember is that they have a variation of kleptomania. They don't 'steal' deliberately or because something is valuable. They absentmindedly pick up interesting things, colours and textures. A shiny hair clip or a funny purple feather willbe picked up while a boring gold coin will be ignored.
Respectfully, that doesn't necessarily make it better. I'm not quite getting the firing squad lined up like Yurei or Vince, but a rational thief is usually - in my experience anyway - less likely to become a problem than a compulsive 'borrower'. If anything, players with the former tend to be be ready to accept the consequences if their character's illegal activities catch up to them; players with the latter often think their 'harmless tomfoolery' should be condoned because it's 'just roleplaying'. That's not a hard rule, of course, but nonetheless an observation borne from having encountered either type a lot. Probably entirely too often.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Hey, I sentenced all Kender to death by whatever means necessary way the hell back in the mid 1990s. If this next book really is Dragonlance, then that book will right next to Tasha’s on the banned for all eternity pile as far as I’m concerned.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Paring down the theatrics a bit, because apparently they fly over people's head.
As a not-Dragonlance fan, the idea of giving a player who doesn't know when to stop a PC species that's specifically designed around the trait "doesn't know when to stop" is a recipe for DM migraines. Players have had "amusing, innocently wholesome quirks" for ages now, and the difference between a beloved traveling companion who brings light and levity to their fellows with their endearing quirkiness and "Voted Most Likely to be Pulled from the Purple Worm's Gullet One Turn Too Late in the Class Yearbook" is knowing when to turn the amusing-wholesome-quirk the hell off and play seriously when the game calls for it.
If I know the player well and can trust them to know where that line is and respect it? All right. I don't care for this particular quirk much, but I'd trust them to try it in a way that might change my opinion. A player I don't know well would be told not to push me and kept an eye on - if they proved themself responsible with it, they'd get to keep it. A player I already know has trouble knowing where the line is and turning their quirkiness off? They get no kender.
Dragonlance is a 30+ year old property by now. A lot of the people who'd buy a Dragonlance book these days would be doing it simply because it's the new D&D book, not because they know any-dang-thing about Dragonlance. Much like the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, the book would need to be able to stand on its own in the modern day of tabletop gaming and be useful to people who've never read a Dragonlance book in their lives, and it would have to start by not disrespecting the DM running a game out of it by giving that DM's players carte blanche to be party-screwing dickheads.
ANYWAYS.
I wouldn't mind a Ravenloft book, but by the same token as the Dragonlance book, I wasn't around for the first Ravenloft and have no attachment to the name. I've got the Grim Hollow book, and that one does basically everything I need a Spoopy Grimdark Fantasy Book to do, with the added bonus of it not being dependent on the bloated corpse of a world setting that is Faerun. It may not be loaded in DDB (which is a shame), but that's why God invented PDFs and the hardcopy edition sitting all decorative-like on my shelf. Between Grim Hollow and Curse of Strahd, the need is mostly covered.
Spelljammer, on the other hand, would be a lovely toy. I love me some space opera, and magic starships flying between exotic worlds sounds like a pretty fantastic set-up for certain kinds of campaign you can't really do with existing tools. Wanna play Mass Effect: Andromeda except have it be not terrible? Spelljammer! Wanna get a taste of every campaign setting out there without having to commit to one until you know which ones you like? Spelljammer! Wanna use ridiculous safari-suit space hippos for target practice? Spelljammer! I don't think we're actually going to get Spelljammer, mind - we got Eberron, and that's likely as close as Wizards is going to get to coloring outside the lines for 5e given how much they got their hands bitten on 4e - but it'd be a lovely toy regardless.
Provided they execute it well, anyways. Which is in no way a sure thing when you're talking Wizards of the Coast.
Hey, I sentenced all Kender to death by whatever means necessary way the hell back in the mid 1990s. If this next book really is Dragonlance, then that book will right next to Tasha’s on the banned for all eternity pile as far as I’m concerned.
**** Kender. *spits on ground*
and while you are distracted Tasselhoff Burfoot has wandered off with your coin pouch...which you seemed ot have dropped whilst spitting on the ground......
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
* Need a character idea? Search for "Rob76's Unused" in the Story and Lore section.
Well if you look at current UA there are two very Ravenlofty character options and two very Dragon(lance)y character options being playtested.
Also quick PSA, if you have a local gaming store and plan to get a physical book, please consider ordering from there rather than B&N or Amazon. Shops like that are wonderful places that spread the game and provide places for people to play, and the pandemic has hit them hard like so many other businesses.
Where do I go to see that? Where is the playtest stuff?
Hey, I sentenced all Kender to death by whatever means necessary way the hell back in the mid 1990s. If this next book really is Dragonlance, then that book will right next to Tasha’s on the banned for all eternity pile as far as I’m concerned.
**** Kender. *spits on ground*
and while you are distracted Tasselhoff Burfoot has wandered off with your coin pouch...which you seemed ot have dropped whilst spitting on the ground......
How? I already led a racial genocide against all Kender. It’ll be tough for them to do any of that from the bottom of a mass grave.
Well if you look at current UA there are two very Ravenlofty character options and two very Dragon(lance)y character options being playtested.
Also quick PSA, if you have a local gaming store and plan to get a physical book, please consider ordering from there rather than B&N or Amazon. Shops like that are wonderful places that spread the game and provide places for people to play, and the pandemic has hit them hard like so many other businesses.
Where do I go to see that? Where is the playtest stuff?
However, if you go to the Character Builder here on DDB and look on the “home” tab, you can toggle on “Playtest Content” and make characters with that content right now.
Hey, I sentenced all Kender to death by whatever means necessary way the hell back in the mid 1990s. If this next book really is Dragonlance, then that book will right next to Tasha’s on the banned for all eternity pile as far as I’m concerned.
**** Kender. *spits on ground*
and while you are distracted Tasselhoff Burfoot has wandered off with your coin pouch...which you seemed ot have dropped whilst spitting on the ground......
How? I already led a racial genocide against all Kender. It’ll be tough for them to do any of that from the bottom of a mass grave.
You forget Tasselhoff is in the past present and future as well as alternate timelines as he has the Device of Time Journeying.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
* Need a character idea? Search for "Rob76's Unused" in the Story and Lore section.
As a person relatively new to D&D and with absolutely no connection to, reverence for, or even much understanding of "Dragonlance", and whose understanding of the things in question comes from basically this thread alone...
The idea of an anarchic kleptomaniacal species with "no concept of personal property" is an immediate red flag to my DM brain. That pretty much screams "terrible rogue memes" to me, and a player who comes to me all bright-eyed with a kender rogue, bard, or a kender anything with the Criminal background is getting a sit-down, a talking-to, and a very intense Fry Meming. That's the sort of thing that seems tailor-made to capital-letters Cause Problems at the table. I totally get people having a nostalgic enjoyment for the books and wanting a chance to play their nostalgia, but someone who says to me "My character comes from a species with no concept of personal property and no real understanding of law or government, and nothing you say will convince me to play anything else"?
The key thing to remember is that they have a variation of kleptomania. They don't 'steal' deliberately or because something is valuable. They absentmindedly pick up interesting things, colours and textures. A shiny hair clip or a funny purple feather willbe picked up while a boring gold coin will be ignored.
That works fine for a character in a novel. But at the gaming table, it really doesn't because the person running the character is nine times out of ten doing it to be a griefer who is constantly disrupting the game with their antics.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Hey, I sentenced all Kender to death by whatever means necessary way the hell back in the mid 1990s. If this next book really is Dragonlance, then that book will right next to Tasha’s on the banned for all eternity pile as far as I’m concerned.
**** Kender. *spits on ground*
and while you are distracted Tasselhoff Burfoot has wandered off with your coin pouch...which you seemed ot have dropped whilst spitting on the ground......
How? I already led a racial genocide against all Kender. It’ll be tough for them to do any of that from the bottom of a mass grave.
You forget Tasselhoff is in the past present and future as well as alternate timelines as he has the Device of Time Journeying.
Forget? How can I forget something I don’t care enough about to know? **** Kender, **** Harold Johnson, and **** Dragonlance.
I had a buddy in high school who insisted on only ever playing a Kender Wild Mage, and when he couldn’t he played a Gnome but just like a Kender. By 1999, every DM I knew had banned Kender, Gnomes, and Wild Magic and half of them had banned Halflings too just in case. I still ban Wild Magic to this day because of that crap. **** Kender.
The key thing to remember is that they have a variation of kleptomania. They don't 'steal' deliberately or because something is valuable. They absentmindedly pick up interesting things, colours and textures. A shiny hair clip or a funny purple feather willbe picked up while a boring gold coin will be ignored.
That works fine for a character in a novel. But at the gaming table, it really doesn't because the person running the character is nine times out of ten doing it to be a griefer who is constantly disrupting the game with their antics.
Yeah, but that's why I posted that I would only allow them for players that I knew would not push their luck with it. Based on my experience with PUG's here on the forum I would be very unlikely to allow it. But in my home games with my friends yeah there are only a few I would say no to.
I have a vague memory of the kleptomania thing being a rule for Kender. But it wasn't an RP rule, it was a random roll table. To represent the Kender vibe, the player or GM would roll on a table and random stuff would appear in the pockets of the PC.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Hey, I sentenced all Kender to death by whatever means necessary way the hell back in the mid 1990s. If this next book really is Dragonlance, then that book will right next to Tasha’s on the banned for all eternity pile as far as I’m concerned.
**** Kender. *spits on ground*
and while you are distracted Tasselhoff Burfoot has wandered off with your coin pouch...which you seemed ot have dropped whilst spitting on the ground......
How? I already led a racial genocide against all Kender. It’ll be tough for them to do any of that from the bottom of a mass grave.
You forget Tasselhoff is in the past present and future as well as alternate timelines as he has the Device of Time Journeying.
Forget? How can I forget something I don’t care enough about to know? **** Kender, **** Harold Johnson, and **** Dragonlance.
I had a buddy in high school who insisted on only ever playing a Kender Wild Mage, and when he couldn’t he played a Gnome but just like a Kender. By 1999, every DM I knew had banned Kender, Gnomes, and Wild Magic and half of them had banned Halflings too just in case. I still ban Wild Magic to this day because of that crap. **** Kender.
Funniest thing I've read all day! I smell your pain =)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I can't think of any situation where Kender kleptomania would be anything other than a severe irritant. If it's even still in there, it's probably not a racial trait, it's probably a possible flaw.
If someone wants the quirk "I pick up weird stuff and I'm not sure why, or even when - these things just appear in my pack", I might be inclined to let them roll on the d100 Trinkets table on some long rests to see what they've uncovered. But that would be about it, and I would neither limit that to kender nor allow kender to do much more than that. They get the same cod-whalloping anyone else does the moment they start being an actual klepto.
So, just finished watching a video that talked about the possibility that the next book could be related to the Feywilds due to the updates coming to Neverwinter pertaining to the Feywilds. Figured I’d just throw that out to get people’s opinions of that. I’m not sure how likely this is but I though it was interesting. The link for anyone interested in seeing the video.
Hey, I sentenced all Kender to death by whatever means necessary way the hell back in the mid 1990s. If this next book really is Dragonlance, then that book will right next to Tasha’s on the banned for all eternity pile as far as I’m concerned.
**** Kender. *spits on ground*
and while you are distracted Tasselhoff Burfoot has wandered off with your coin pouch...which you seemed ot have dropped whilst spitting on the ground......
How? I already led a racial genocide against all Kender. It’ll be tough for them to do any of that from the bottom of a mass grave.
You forget Tasselhoff is in the past present and future as well as alternate timelines as he has the Device of Time Journeying.
Forget? How can I forget something I don’t care enough about to know? **** Kender, **** Harold Johnson, and **** Dragonlance.
I had a buddy in high school who insisted on only ever playing a Kender Wild Mage, and when he couldn’t he played a Gnome but just like a Kender. By 1999, every DM I knew had banned Kender, Gnomes, and Wild Magic and half of them had banned Halflings too just in case. I still ban Wild Magic to this day because of that crap. **** Kender.
I banned Gnomes in 2nd Edition due to the fact that they were the Kender of every other setting. I didn't allow Gnomes back into my games until 5e.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
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The key thing to remember is that they have a variation of kleptomania. They don't 'steal' deliberately or because something is valuable. They absentmindedly pick up interesting things, colours and textures. A shiny hair clip or a funny purple feather willbe picked up while a boring gold coin will be ignored.
Respectfully, that doesn't necessarily make it better. I'm not quite getting the firing squad lined up like Yurei or Vince, but a rational thief is usually - in my experience anyway - less likely to become a problem than a compulsive 'borrower'. If anything, players with the former tend to be be ready to accept the consequences if their character's illegal activities catch up to them; players with the latter often think their 'harmless tomfoolery' should be condoned because it's 'just roleplaying'. That's not a hard rule, of course, but nonetheless an observation borne from having encountered either type a lot. Probably entirely too often.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Hey, I sentenced all Kender to death by whatever means necessary way the hell back in the mid 1990s. If this next book really is Dragonlance, then that book will right next to Tasha’s on the banned for all eternity pile as far as I’m concerned.
**** Kender. *spits on ground*
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I'm really not very interested in new races. We have plenty already. I would, by far, prefer new magic items, spells, and monsters.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Paring down the theatrics a bit, because apparently they fly over people's head.
As a not-Dragonlance fan, the idea of giving a player who doesn't know when to stop a PC species that's specifically designed around the trait "doesn't know when to stop" is a recipe for DM migraines. Players have had "amusing, innocently wholesome quirks" for ages now, and the difference between a beloved traveling companion who brings light and levity to their fellows with their endearing quirkiness and "Voted Most Likely to be Pulled from the Purple Worm's Gullet One Turn Too Late in the Class Yearbook" is knowing when to turn the amusing-wholesome-quirk the hell off and play seriously when the game calls for it.
If I know the player well and can trust them to know where that line is and respect it? All right. I don't care for this particular quirk much, but I'd trust them to try it in a way that might change my opinion. A player I don't know well would be told not to push me and kept an eye on - if they proved themself responsible with it, they'd get to keep it. A player I already know has trouble knowing where the line is and turning their quirkiness off? They get no kender.
Dragonlance is a 30+ year old property by now. A lot of the people who'd buy a Dragonlance book these days would be doing it simply because it's the new D&D book, not because they know any-dang-thing about Dragonlance. Much like the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, the book would need to be able to stand on its own in the modern day of tabletop gaming and be useful to people who've never read a Dragonlance book in their lives, and it would have to start by not disrespecting the DM running a game out of it by giving that DM's players carte blanche to be party-screwing dickheads.
ANYWAYS.
I wouldn't mind a Ravenloft book, but by the same token as the Dragonlance book, I wasn't around for the first Ravenloft and have no attachment to the name. I've got the Grim Hollow book, and that one does basically everything I need a Spoopy Grimdark Fantasy Book to do, with the added bonus of it not being dependent on the bloated corpse of a world setting that is Faerun. It may not be loaded in DDB (which is a shame), but that's why God invented PDFs and the hardcopy edition sitting all decorative-like on my shelf. Between Grim Hollow and Curse of Strahd, the need is mostly covered.
Spelljammer, on the other hand, would be a lovely toy. I love me some space opera, and magic starships flying between exotic worlds sounds like a pretty fantastic set-up for certain kinds of campaign you can't really do with existing tools. Wanna play Mass Effect: Andromeda except have it be not terrible? Spelljammer! Wanna get a taste of every campaign setting out there without having to commit to one until you know which ones you like? Spelljammer! Wanna use ridiculous safari-suit space hippos for target practice? Spelljammer! I don't think we're actually going to get Spelljammer, mind - we got Eberron, and that's likely as close as Wizards is going to get to coloring outside the lines for 5e given how much they got their hands bitten on 4e - but it'd be a lovely toy regardless.
Provided they execute it well, anyways. Which is in no way a sure thing when you're talking Wizards of the Coast.
Please do not contact or message me.
and while you are distracted Tasselhoff Burfoot has wandered off with your coin pouch...which you seemed ot have dropped whilst spitting on the ground......
Where do I go to see that? Where is the playtest stuff?
It's too soon for another Tasha's/Xanthar type book.
I'm guessing that it's a new adventure.
How? I already led a racial genocide against all Kender. It’ll be tough for them to do any of that from the bottom of a mass grave.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
You can download PDFs here:
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana
However, if you go to the Character Builder here on DDB and look on the “home” tab, you can toggle on “Playtest Content” and make characters with that content right now.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
You forget Tasselhoff is in the past present and future as well as alternate timelines as he has the Device of Time Journeying.
That works fine for a character in a novel. But at the gaming table, it really doesn't because the person running the character is nine times out of ten doing it to be a griefer who is constantly disrupting the game with their antics.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Forget? How can I forget something I don’t care enough about to know? **** Kender, **** Harold Johnson, and **** Dragonlance.
I had a buddy in high school who insisted on only ever playing a Kender Wild Mage, and when he couldn’t he played a Gnome but just like a Kender. By 1999, every DM I knew had banned Kender, Gnomes, and Wild Magic and half of them had banned Halflings too just in case. I still ban Wild Magic to this day because of that crap. **** Kender.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Yeah, but that's why I posted that I would only allow them for players that I knew would not push their luck with it. Based on my experience with PUG's here on the forum I would be very unlikely to allow it. But in my home games with my friends yeah there are only a few I would say no to.
I have a vague memory of the kleptomania thing being a rule for Kender. But it wasn't an RP rule, it was a random roll table. To represent the Kender vibe, the player or GM would roll on a table and random stuff would appear in the pockets of the PC.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Funniest thing I've read all day! I smell your pain =)
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I can't think of any situation where Kender kleptomania would be anything other than a severe irritant. If it's even still in there, it's probably not a racial trait, it's probably a possible flaw.
If someone wants the quirk "I pick up weird stuff and I'm not sure why, or even when - these things just appear in my pack", I might be inclined to let them roll on the d100 Trinkets table on some long rests to see what they've uncovered. But that would be about it, and I would neither limit that to kender nor allow kender to do much more than that. They get the same cod-whalloping anyone else does the moment they start being an actual klepto.
Please do not contact or message me.
So, just finished watching a video that talked about the possibility that the next book could be related to the Feywilds due to the updates coming to Neverwinter pertaining to the Feywilds. Figured I’d just throw that out to get people’s opinions of that. I’m not sure how likely this is but I though it was interesting. The link for anyone interested in seeing the video.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F-2IKIvnBV4
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
I banned Gnomes in 2nd Edition due to the fact that they were the Kender of every other setting. I didn't allow Gnomes back into my games until 5e.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master