I have played a lot of different characters over the years, but this will be my first attempt at a Kenku. I am a fan of Critical Role and loved the episodes with Kiri (which is probably part of my reason for wanting to explore this race). There would be some major differences however. Kiri was very young and had likely not been exposed to other races/ peoples before her rescue in the swamp. I will be making a character, starting level 1, who will be (hopefully) a full member of an adventuring party.
I would love to play the Mimicry trait, but I don't want it to become a source of annoyance to the other players. I have read a few articles discussing this, but wanted to seek advice from anyone who has either played a Kenku or had one as a party member. What things worked well or poorly in your case and why?
I had planned to have a short list of perhaps a half-dozen phrases that the character can use upon first meeting the party. Session 0 is this Friday. I would be grateful for any experiences or advice you can share.
I DM'ed for a group with two Kenku and have one in another group I play in.
I find them... difficult. If you follow the lore, you will be discriminated against, and will be associated with every crime that happens to occur in the area. Not being able to communicate clearly is also a huge drawback, even if it is funny to play that out (occasionally). But the most aggravating hurdle is that a Kenku lacks any capacity to be creative.
That makes them, in my opinion, completely unsuitable for player characters.
Of course you can make exceptions to the Kenku species and have this particular individual be special. That wouldn't even be bad, had not every Kenku PC I've ever encountered gone against 'type'.
Having said that, both Kenku players I DM'ed for had done a nice job with phrases. One had a soundboard on his computer he'd play, the other was writing down every noteworthy sentence she heard from players or NPCs and quoted them at the right time.
So as long as you can ignore the setting/lore for Kenku, they can be a lot of fun, but they are challenging and a lot of work.
Concur with the above - any kenku that tries to play the 'lacks creativity' thing from the lore is doomed to failure. Humanity cannot be uncreative. Our brains just don't work that way. Fortunately, in Exandria at least, that is not part of the setting's kenku lore - Exandrian kenku are suffering a dark god's curse, but that curse was an attack against them, not a punishment inflicted on them, and so they didn't lose their creativity.
I would love to play the Mimicry trait, but I don't want it to become a source of annoyance to the other players. I have read a few articles discussing this, but wanted to seek advice from anyone who has either played a Kenku or had one as a party member. What things worked well or poorly in your case and why?
I would be grateful for any experiences or advice you can share.
I was in a campaign with a guy who was playing a Kenku. During Session 0, he passed around a piece of paper and asked everyone to write down two phrases, each with a note about how it should be said. “A shank is a shank.” (Very matter of factly.) became the catchphrase of the whole campaign.
I would love to play the Mimicry trait, but I don't want it to become a source of annoyance to the other players. I have read a few articles discussing this, but wanted to seek advice from anyone who has either played a Kenku or had one as a party member. What things worked well or poorly in your case and why?
I would be grateful for any experiences or advice you can share.
I was in a campaign with a guy who was playing a Kenku. During Session 0, he passed around a piece of paper and asked everyone to write down two phrases, each with a note about how it should be said. “A shank is a shank.” (Very matter of factly.) became the catchphrase of the whole campaign.
I would love to play the Mimicry trait, but I don't want it to become a source of annoyance to the other players. I have read a few articles discussing this, but wanted to seek advice from anyone who has either played a Kenku or had one as a party member. What things worked well or poorly in your case and why?
I would be grateful for any experiences or advice you can share.
I was in a campaign with a guy who was playing a Kenku. During Session 0, he passed around a piece of paper and asked everyone to write down two phrases, each with a note about how it should be said. “A shank is a shank.” (Very matter of factly.) became the catchphrase of the whole campaign.
Spostas idea is probably the best I think. That, or doing what it says on volos. You might say he makes the sound of thunder and lightning, then squeals like a pig, showing he is scared of the storm giant. This is the simplest thing to do, though spostas is better for actually saying things. I will be playing a kenku soon, played one before, and loved doing a mix of these approaches. It allows you to have fun, interact with people and have people understand you.
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'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
To get around the mimicry limitations I played as a Kenku Great Old One Warlock, which gave access to telepathic communication for the character just in case I couldn't convey a concept succinctly with the limitations of Kenku mimicry... the catch being that, when communicating this way, it's in the voice of his Patron, so he would avoid using it as his primary method of communication because he didn't want to freak people out.
Another alternative I had was the character grabbed Mold Earth as a cantrip, which he could use to write out messages on any stone surface nearby. You could pull off the same thing with prestidigitation or minor illusion as well... even Druidcraft could manage the concept.
However, I mostly had those things as an "out" in case I was just really struggling to play him. For the most part I played him with a "Silent Bob" mindset. I communicated with a lot of gestures and descriptions, and occasionally just said outright what his expressions were meant to evoke. For example, if someone suggests a terrible idea, instead of using quotes or mimicry I'd just state, "Clicks looks at ____ like he's an idiot". I also settled on two "voices" that the character regularly relied on... as part of his backstory he used his skill at forgery for both crime, and to copy books at a local college. So he had a "criminal" voice (which was basically just a bad cockney accent impersonating the crime boss he regularly worked for), and a "scholar" voice (a snooty voice). It made it a bit easier to play him, since I would just use whichever voice made the most sense and ad-libbed a phrase mostly related to what was happening. Like... if I succeeded on an arcana check, I would use the scholar voice and just recite what I learned in the form of a school lecture. If we were trying to break into a bandit camp or something, I would describe plans to sneak in, but subtly imply that the original plan was for sneaking into a bank.
Other than that I mostly dropped catch phrases from films whenever it would be funny.
Kenku demand a creative player, to play such a limited uncreative character. Finding ways to play into being uncreative and repeating salient bits of what’s come before in a way that ISNT attention hogging and a pain in the butt can be a challenge for some players. But it need not be, so if they want to try it, let them!
Your player who is a little shy and doesn’t enjoy interacting with NPCs much may be fine with a kenku... they can hang out in the background of social encounters, follow everyone else’s lead, and if cornered in a conversation, just repeat the NPC back to themselves until they leave you alone.
Your thoughtful role player who is on a whole other level from the rest of the table, with complicated backstories and cultural immersion... they’ll be fine, they’ll be clanking like mead cups and clashing like swords and quoting the king in all the right places.
Its really mostly your prankster/edge lord you need to look out for, they’re going to use kenku racisls as an excuse to be eye rollingly difficult and slow everything to a crawl. But then again, those players can ruin ANYTHING, so that isn’t really the kenku races fault.
Not wanting to be an annoyance is 90% of the battle, honestly. If your heart's in the right place and you communicate with the other players, you should be fine. But as for the rest, if your kenku spent a lot of time among other humanoids, they'd probably have a wide enough repertoire of phrases that they could say just about anything you'd say normally—but in a different voice every time!
Gotta say honestly Matt Mercers method of just repeating things that were just said is pretty solid. Ex: J:"Kiri are you okay?" Kiri: "Okay
I haven't played a Kenku but I have DMed for one in particular, and 4 in under an hour. So I'll share that story cause its good advice. Basically I was having everyone play out their backstory as a level 0 or level 1 character. Depending on who was there, the other players played NPCs in the backstory. Kenku Rogue takes the stage and is teamed up with his two fellow Kenku flock members and after some exposition and talking with NPCs they start plotting the big heist they need to do. And that's where things got annoying. See Volo's Guide gives the advice that you can use everyday sounds to convey meaning or emotions. Which is fine. But this becomes far less charming when 3 people are just describing how they use sounds to convey meaning for every single piece of conversation nonstop for 20 minutes. They could have just spoken out of character, or even used phrases they remembered other humanoids saying. Got an actual headache and told them to please speak as humans.
I'm not saying Kenku are annoying or that the sound thing is annoying. But you do have to not overdo it. We as people remember many things important and unimportant people have said to us throughout our lives, which your Kenku can likely use to speak normally at times. Another easy out is that your Kenku has listened to and remembered speeches given by local politicians, nobles or religious figureheads (Long with many words to choose from) or the solicitations of paperboys or town cryers or whatever source of news there is i.e: "Dragon attack at Westbridge!" and can pick out choice select words when needed.
That being said, I've played a Groot style character who could only say their own name. Never underestimate the power of tone and facial expressions and a bit of occasional ooc talk. Best of Luck.
One fun idea that occurs to me, in the vein of "the kenku has a vocabulary of remembered words it can use to form normal sentences, just in different voices".
Put on your best William Shatner accent, and maybe change the inflection of each set of words. "I am...truly...sorry that...you feel that way. I know...I...can come across as...needlessly...obscure...from time to time. But I swear...I...will do...whatever I must...to make you...feel...at ease."
Shatner Pauses are a good way of signalling that one's kenku is switching 'voices', even if one cannot do all the voices themselves, and it's easier for the human brain to just break sentences up a little unnaturally than to try and create a composite speech. Plus, let's face it. Shatnerspeak is just amusing.
Gotta say honestly Matt Mercers method of just repeating things that were just said is pretty solid. Ex: J:"Kiri are you okay?" Kiri: "Okay
The way Mercer played Kiri was great for an NPC, but I think the way he played her wouldn't have really worked as a deeply involved player character. Still, I think it's a good base to pull inspiration from. I think a single Kenku can be fun to include in a party, but it definitely seems like something that would get tiring very quickly in a group of 3 or more.
it definitely seems like something that would get tiring very quickly in a group of 3 or more
Oh yeah for sure. Can't recommend avoiding that scenario enough. Thankfully it was just a single 1 hour session, that only 1 kenku got out of alive to be in future games (I did say it was backstory)
I once played a pirate Kenku who would just use pirate jargon to convey everything he wanted to say. It was fun at first and the party was really into it, and then it just became the way I spoke. It didn't grind into anyone because we didnt make it a big deal past the first few times when it was new/funny
Another idea would be to use famous quotes from movies or shows IRL, or just describe X sound in Y fashion (chirps quizzically, makes excited drum sounds, e.t.c)
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
I know it's been a while, but since the only thing I really saw being mentioned in this thread was the speech part of the mimicry aspect, I'd like to chip in my own two cents about the creativity aspect. I've been mulling that bit over myself in preparation for my own character, and I think the real key is that lacking the ability to invent or create is not, inherently, a limitation to the creativity of the player, and something that can really help in that regard is having a strong backstory. For instance, how do you have a Kenku Artificer that can never create their own devices? Flavor everything you create as being plagiarized from their co-worker. How do you have a Kenku Wizard be able to write their own spells? Have them be spells they learned and remember from their time learning at a magic school. Bards can perfectly repeat the songs they heard from other bards while wandering from town to town, Warlocks can get twisted visions from their patrons to create effigies, Druids can see the patterns in nature and replicate them, Warriors use tactics from their mentors, and Rogues can learn their skills from other darker dealings with others in the shadows.
The important thing is, much like a Kenku's voice, none of this needs to be explicitly detailed in the backstory. Just come up with a few individuals in their backstory who your Kenku might be imitating, and from there, go wild. Though, that said, a bit of prep work will likely go a long way for both their creations/ideas as well as their voice lines. For example, I'm planning a Sage Wizard who was adopted by a head librarian, so all the NPCs I'm pulling from are basically his family, co-workers, and regulars to the library he met while growing up. I've listed out a few of their personalities as inspiration for lines he might have heard them say, and the kinds of things they may have created/taught that he can replicate during the game. I'm also planning on making my note-taking read more like a transcript, jotting down lines/phrases other players/NPCs say/do in-character so I can repeat them in the future.
At the end of the day, I think the Kenku race in general is best suited as a concept where you get to explore and create your character's past while you're playing them, getting to voice and RP as various different characters your Kenku has had interactions with. Or, I guess in other words, it's best strength is allowing you to wear many hats without outright needing to be the DM of the game. I'll admit, it definitely doesn't seem like an easy class to roleplay; not because it limits player creativity, but because it requires more of it to be done well. Of course, a lot of this is in theory rather than practice at the moment, so we'll see where I'm at after a couple months of playing my own, but I'm certainly looking forward to it~
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I have played a lot of different characters over the years, but this will be my first attempt at a Kenku.
I am a fan of Critical Role and loved the episodes with Kiri (which is probably part of my reason for wanting to explore this race). There would be some major differences however. Kiri was very young and had likely not been exposed to other races/ peoples before her rescue in the swamp. I will be making a character, starting level 1, who will be (hopefully) a full member of an adventuring party.
I would love to play the Mimicry trait, but I don't want it to become a source of annoyance to the other players. I have read a few articles discussing this, but wanted to seek advice from anyone who has either played a Kenku or had one as a party member. What things worked well or poorly in your case and why?
I had planned to have a short list of perhaps a half-dozen phrases that the character can use upon first meeting the party. Session 0 is this Friday.
I would be grateful for any experiences or advice you can share.
I DM'ed for a group with two Kenku and have one in another group I play in.
I find them... difficult. If you follow the lore, you will be discriminated against, and will be associated with every crime that happens to occur in the area. Not being able to communicate clearly is also a huge drawback, even if it is funny to play that out (occasionally). But the most aggravating hurdle is that a Kenku lacks any capacity to be creative.
That makes them, in my opinion, completely unsuitable for player characters.
Of course you can make exceptions to the Kenku species and have this particular individual be special. That wouldn't even be bad, had not every Kenku PC I've ever encountered gone against 'type'.
Having said that, both Kenku players I DM'ed for had done a nice job with phrases. One had a soundboard on his computer he'd play, the other was writing down every noteworthy sentence she heard from players or NPCs and quoted them at the right time.
So as long as you can ignore the setting/lore for Kenku, they can be a lot of fun, but they are challenging and a lot of work.
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Concur with the above - any kenku that tries to play the 'lacks creativity' thing from the lore is doomed to failure. Humanity cannot be uncreative. Our brains just don't work that way. Fortunately, in Exandria at least, that is not part of the setting's kenku lore - Exandrian kenku are suffering a dark god's curse, but that curse was an attack against them, not a punishment inflicted on them, and so they didn't lose their creativity.
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I was in a campaign with a guy who was playing a Kenku. During Session 0, he passed around a piece of paper and asked everyone to write down two phrases, each with a note about how it should be said. “A shank is a shank.” (Very matter of factly.) became the catchphrase of the whole campaign.
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Spostas idea is probably the best I think. That, or doing what it says on volos. You might say he makes the sound of thunder and lightning, then squeals like a pig, showing he is scared of the storm giant. This is the simplest thing to do, though spostas is better for actually saying things. I will be playing a kenku soon, played one before, and loved doing a mix of these approaches. It allows you to have fun, interact with people and have people understand you.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
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To get around the mimicry limitations I played as a Kenku Great Old One Warlock, which gave access to telepathic communication for the character just in case I couldn't convey a concept succinctly with the limitations of Kenku mimicry... the catch being that, when communicating this way, it's in the voice of his Patron, so he would avoid using it as his primary method of communication because he didn't want to freak people out.
Another alternative I had was the character grabbed Mold Earth as a cantrip, which he could use to write out messages on any stone surface nearby. You could pull off the same thing with prestidigitation or minor illusion as well... even Druidcraft could manage the concept.
However, I mostly had those things as an "out" in case I was just really struggling to play him. For the most part I played him with a "Silent Bob" mindset. I communicated with a lot of gestures and descriptions, and occasionally just said outright what his expressions were meant to evoke. For example, if someone suggests a terrible idea, instead of using quotes or mimicry I'd just state, "Clicks looks at ____ like he's an idiot". I also settled on two "voices" that the character regularly relied on... as part of his backstory he used his skill at forgery for both crime, and to copy books at a local college. So he had a "criminal" voice (which was basically just a bad cockney accent impersonating the crime boss he regularly worked for), and a "scholar" voice (a snooty voice). It made it a bit easier to play him, since I would just use whichever voice made the most sense and ad-libbed a phrase mostly related to what was happening. Like... if I succeeded on an arcana check, I would use the scholar voice and just recite what I learned in the form of a school lecture. If we were trying to break into a bandit camp or something, I would describe plans to sneak in, but subtly imply that the original plan was for sneaking into a bank.
Other than that I mostly dropped catch phrases from films whenever it would be funny.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Kenku demand a creative player, to play such a limited uncreative character. Finding ways to play into being uncreative and repeating salient bits of what’s come before in a way that ISNT attention hogging and a pain in the butt can be a challenge for some players. But it need not be, so if they want to try it, let them!
Your player who is a little shy and doesn’t enjoy interacting with NPCs much may be fine with a kenku... they can hang out in the background of social encounters, follow everyone else’s lead, and if cornered in a conversation, just repeat the NPC back to themselves until they leave you alone.
Your thoughtful role player who is on a whole other level from the rest of the table, with complicated backstories and cultural immersion... they’ll be fine, they’ll be clanking like mead cups and clashing like swords and quoting the king in all the right places.
Its really mostly your prankster/edge lord you need to look out for, they’re going to use kenku racisls as an excuse to be eye rollingly difficult and slow everything to a crawl. But then again, those players can ruin ANYTHING, so that isn’t really the kenku races fault.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Not wanting to be an annoyance is 90% of the battle, honestly. If your heart's in the right place and you communicate with the other players, you should be fine. But as for the rest, if your kenku spent a lot of time among other humanoids, they'd probably have a wide enough repertoire of phrases that they could say just about anything you'd say normally—but in a different voice every time!
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Gotta say honestly Matt Mercers method of just repeating things that were just said is pretty solid. Ex: J:"Kiri are you okay?" Kiri: "Okay
I haven't played a Kenku but I have DMed for one in particular, and 4 in under an hour. So I'll share that story cause its good advice. Basically I was having everyone play out their backstory as a level 0 or level 1 character. Depending on who was there, the other players played NPCs in the backstory. Kenku Rogue takes the stage and is teamed up with his two fellow Kenku flock members and after some exposition and talking with NPCs they start plotting the big heist they need to do. And that's where things got annoying. See Volo's Guide gives the advice that you can use everyday sounds to convey meaning or emotions. Which is fine. But this becomes far less charming when 3 people are just describing how they use sounds to convey meaning for every single piece of conversation nonstop for 20 minutes. They could have just spoken out of character, or even used phrases they remembered other humanoids saying. Got an actual headache and told them to please speak as humans.
I'm not saying Kenku are annoying or that the sound thing is annoying. But you do have to not overdo it. We as people remember many things important and unimportant people have said to us throughout our lives, which your Kenku can likely use to speak normally at times. Another easy out is that your Kenku has listened to and remembered speeches given by local politicians, nobles or religious figureheads (Long with many words to choose from) or the solicitations of paperboys or town cryers or whatever source of news there is i.e: "Dragon attack at Westbridge!" and can pick out choice select words when needed.
That being said, I've played a Groot style character who could only say their own name. Never underestimate the power of tone and facial expressions and a bit of occasional ooc talk. Best of Luck.
“Kiri makes the sound of tumbling locks, suggesting that the flock pick the door.”
”Craw makes the sound of hissing Acid whole shaking her head, suggesting that the door is likely trapped.”
”Kacar makes the sound of breaking glass, followed by barking dogs, suggesting a window be broken as a diversion.”
”Kiri makes clattering gold noises, she agrees!”
”Craw laughs like the baker who sells bread on the corner below their roost and booms “It’s a deal!”, she agrees!”
If that’s annoying to you, don’t allow Kenku. But I think it’s delightful.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
One fun idea that occurs to me, in the vein of "the kenku has a vocabulary of remembered words it can use to form normal sentences, just in different voices".
Put on your best William Shatner accent, and maybe change the inflection of each set of words. "I am...truly...sorry that...you feel that way. I know...I...can come across as...needlessly...obscure...from time to time. But I swear...I...will do...whatever I must...to make you...feel...at ease."
Shatner Pauses are a good way of signalling that one's kenku is switching 'voices', even if one cannot do all the voices themselves, and it's easier for the human brain to just break sentences up a little unnaturally than to try and create a composite speech. Plus, let's face it. Shatnerspeak is just amusing.
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The way Mercer played Kiri was great for an NPC, but I think the way he played her wouldn't have really worked as a deeply involved player character. Still, I think it's a good base to pull inspiration from. I think a single Kenku can be fun to include in a party, but it definitely seems like something that would get tiring very quickly in a group of 3 or more.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Oh yeah for sure. Can't recommend avoiding that scenario enough. Thankfully it was just a single 1 hour session, that only 1 kenku got out of alive to be in future games (I did say it was backstory)
I once played a pirate Kenku who would just use pirate jargon to convey everything he wanted to say. It was fun at first and the party was really into it, and then it just became the way I spoke. It didn't grind into anyone because we didnt make it a big deal past the first few times when it was new/funny
Another idea would be to use famous quotes from movies or shows IRL, or just describe X sound in Y fashion (chirps quizzically, makes excited drum sounds, e.t.c)
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
I know it's been a while, but since the only thing I really saw being mentioned in this thread was the speech part of the mimicry aspect, I'd like to chip in my own two cents about the creativity aspect. I've been mulling that bit over myself in preparation for my own character, and I think the real key is that lacking the ability to invent or create is not, inherently, a limitation to the creativity of the player, and something that can really help in that regard is having a strong backstory. For instance, how do you have a Kenku Artificer that can never create their own devices? Flavor everything you create as being plagiarized from their co-worker. How do you have a Kenku Wizard be able to write their own spells? Have them be spells they learned and remember from their time learning at a magic school. Bards can perfectly repeat the songs they heard from other bards while wandering from town to town, Warlocks can get twisted visions from their patrons to create effigies, Druids can see the patterns in nature and replicate them, Warriors use tactics from their mentors, and Rogues can learn their skills from other darker dealings with others in the shadows.
The important thing is, much like a Kenku's voice, none of this needs to be explicitly detailed in the backstory. Just come up with a few individuals in their backstory who your Kenku might be imitating, and from there, go wild. Though, that said, a bit of prep work will likely go a long way for both their creations/ideas as well as their voice lines. For example, I'm planning a Sage Wizard who was adopted by a head librarian, so all the NPCs I'm pulling from are basically his family, co-workers, and regulars to the library he met while growing up. I've listed out a few of their personalities as inspiration for lines he might have heard them say, and the kinds of things they may have created/taught that he can replicate during the game. I'm also planning on making my note-taking read more like a transcript, jotting down lines/phrases other players/NPCs say/do in-character so I can repeat them in the future.
At the end of the day, I think the Kenku race in general is best suited as a concept where you get to explore and create your character's past while you're playing them, getting to voice and RP as various different characters your Kenku has had interactions with. Or, I guess in other words, it's best strength is allowing you to wear many hats without outright needing to be the DM of the game. I'll admit, it definitely doesn't seem like an easy class to roleplay; not because it limits player creativity, but because it requires more of it to be done well. Of course, a lot of this is in theory rather than practice at the moment, so we'll see where I'm at after a couple months of playing my own, but I'm certainly looking forward to it~