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Before you all begin yammering about how kender have no place in Golarion, and would have been killed off by all the other races long ago, please explain the continued existence of goblins, kobolds, and the like (races far more worthy of genocide). Also, please point me to where the OP asked about kender in Golarion. Point of fact, he never did.
Take, for...
Goblins, kobolds, and other evil races haven't been killed by genocide in Golarion, but not for lack of trying. It's not that a race that steals babies from cribs, sets fire to towns, and murders dogs isn't worthy of human and demi-human crusades; it's that they live out in the wilderness, are tough to catch, and often have much more powerful Hobgoblins and Bugbears protecting them. Goblins are still alive because they reproduce like rabbits, are hard to track down, and don't really mingle with people except to terrorize them. Same deal with kobolds; they may be evil and incredibly annoying, but have fun trying to chase them through trap-filled warrens infested with dangerous tamed monsters like Slurks. So yeah, it's not that people don't try to commit genocide against Goblins and Kobolds in Golarion; it's that they aren't able to succeed.
Kender, on the other hand, live in civilized lands where they're easy to find, don't really seem to have any sort of insane trap-building ability like Kobolds, lack the allies that Goblins have, and don't have any sort of exceptional skill at combat like Orcs. In short, Goblins, Kobolds, and Orcs may be annoying, but they're also dangerous. Kender are just annoying. They may be good at stealing, but that usually doesn't protect you from angry adventurers.
Well, the only natural ally of a kender is a complicit DM and a really stupid racial write up that claims anyone who doesn't like midget kleptos is evil.
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While I somewhat agree, I do have to wonder this: If they are barely worth the effort for someone who does like them, then why are they seemingly SO worth the effort for people who profess to dislike them.
Because someone is wrong on the internet, dangit.
What can ya do.
That set up is also very mis-leading I hope that asking for interesting things are not dictated to the PC....
DM
"You see an interesting dead body of a small girl with interesting coins over her eyes and pretty bows in her hair...."Great yes if you as DM dictate what is interesting to the PC then yep, otherwise he notes them and decides if they are interesting....
Are you familiar with the term rail-roading (in reference to a PC)?
Yes. Are you familiar with metagaming?
KENDER PLAYER: So I open the door to the secret room. Do I see anything interesting?
DM: Define "interesting."
KENDER PLAYER: Oh, you know, shiny coins, pretty baubles, toys, pockets to investigate, that sort of thing.
DM: Okay. You've opened a long concealed crypt. The body of a young girl is laid out on a byre. She's mostly mummified by time and her once rich dress is rotted, but it does have pockets and you can tell from the bulge that there's something in them. She also has a doll clutched in her bony hands. It appears to be made of wax and is still quite beautiful, if dusty. There are also cloth of gold bows in her hair which have not decayed like the dress. They're very pretty and delightfully old fashioned. Oh yes, and there are two ancient silver coins over her eyes, both of which are still bright and shiny and have interesting mint marks, probably from some long forgotten empire.
KENDER PLAYER: Oh poot! That's not interesting at all! I close the door and go look for something interesting!
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The original request "Help me build a Kender without kender hate!" can be (and has been by myself and others) taken in the context of "Help me build a Kender that won't be hated." and we have given input toward that end.
The fact of the matter is that not enough people want kender that are not hated.
It's not as if the OP hasn't fallen into the discussion of Kender hate himself; check KenderKin's profile. You'll notice that he and Trapdodger Barefoot (the OP) are aliases of the same person.
Are you familiar with the term rail-roading (in reference to a PC)?
Why yes I am. We are talking about kender after all which only work in any given game at the GM's railroading, and are written as having to be railroaded.
I posted the 1e write up, as written in 1e you have one option, that is not the GM's doing that is how kender are made. You choose to play a race with one option in may ways.
Its like playing a paladin then b#*@+ing when you can't lie to get past the guards or claiming your being railroaded for having to follow the code.
The kenders actions are hardwired. The 1e write up I posted shows that, hell it states it clearly.
This thread is hilarious.
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I had like three takers on help with the build and about 100 jack-wagons that were no help, so yep went to my default poster, and continued to participate in my thread!
Sorry, didn't mean to sound like I was criticizing you for participating in your own thread and defending a race you like. I was just countering the argument that this whole debate is against your wishes, since you're participating.
Sign, did you even read the write up? I spent a lot of time posting it just for you pro guys who were claiming falsely that the flavor was changed from 1e.
The write up shows it was not. A kender must steal, they lie, the believe the lie they told,every single thing in the write up says they would take those coins, not a single thing says they would not. It pretty much says thy must.
If it is interesting they would handle it, coins he has never seen, silver..really silver coins? Unknown silver coins with unknown images on them? really?
Only the players "we can't take from the dead" metagame knowledge makes them anything but uninteresting to a kender.
The kender's very soul would scream that he most handled them..just for a while..he can put em back later after all..not like he is stealing or anything......
And yes to a kender there is no other option as written
Play a Halfing
Take the APG Feats when possible: Well-Prepared, Underfoot, Go Unnoticed, or Childlike.
........
To Avoid the Kender Hate
DO NOT Tell your party your playing a kender. Tell them its a Halfling. If you are playing the kender correctly, your party will want to string you up and gag you at some point in the future... :)
I was about to suggest the same thing. In fact, it was suggested on the first page.
Just be a halfling. If there's something about kender that you want to play, you can play it while being a halfling and as said, if it works you can feel good that you played a 'kender' without being hated.
If it fails and you get strung up, you have only yourself to blame.
The code of the kender! I like it! Now what is it that it clearly states a PC must do to be a kender?
Read the write up, it paints kender players into a code of behavior they have to follow as strongly as a paladins code does.
Read the section on handling and the whole thing, your cherry picking and leaving out the whole. The behavior is in the kenders soul, he can not turn it off.
As written you have one option with the coins, to act any other way is to turn off being a kender. After all to the kender he did nothing wrong at all.
Man, lets run this down
1: Coins made of silver not steel
2: Coins of a type you had never ever seen before
3: Coins looked to have been made by some unknown minting tech
4: Coins with never before seen images on them
5: Coins are lying on a dead child for some reason
That is 5 reason to anyone why they are interesting, not just kender anyone would find them odd. But to a kender even 1 of those reasons would be enough to take a closer look at lest, all 5 and it is imposable to pass those up.
As written kender simply must handle it, they could not pass it up for any reason. They are not worried of undead or being caught. If there was a big sign that said "Never touch the coins on pain of death" they would still have to handle them, they would just have to.
I agree the write up is bad and forces the player onto a railroad way to often, but he chose to play the race knowing that.
Wow those coins get more and more interesting all the time!
Can I have 1 of them?
All 5 of those things are listed in the post about the coins, when asked about anything interesting all those things are pointed out in that post.
You choose to ignore all of that go go "Oh a kender would never take from the dead" and kept ignoring all the things about the coins.
The issue is not the dead child, the coins scream take me to a kender and you choose the most unkender like option..ignore them.
So your interpretations are reasonable extrapolations and mine are meta-gaming, interesting double standard.
I said it would be reasonable for the kender to be upset by the girl's death as a reasonable extrapolation of the racial write up about the injured deer........
Everyone said no way....
Please respect my reasonable extrapolations that are at least based upon reason and the racial write-up!
Oh, by sweet Kyuss's worm-riddled corpse, your extrapolation about the deer makes no sense. Here. Look at the original:
Death only seems to affect a kender when it comes to one that the kender knows and loves, or when it is meted out by disaster or warfare to innocent beings (including any kender). In such cases, the distress that the usually cheerful kender feels seems extremely terrible. A story is told of a human ranger in the Age of Dreams who wounded a deer that was the pet of a kender community. The sight of an entire village of small kender crying their hearts out was so upsetting to the ranger that he quested until he found a druid who could heal the animal, then retired and took up fishing.
I think the story of the deer shows their affection for a pet. If you wanted to extrapolate it, the reasonable extrapolation is that all Kender are militant vegans and anachronistic PETA members. I could live with that, but it's the reasonable extrapolation.
Other than that, the text does say that the Kender would be upset at the death of an innocent creature. Assuming that human children are on that list is reasonable, but extending it to having Kender respect all funerary traditions with regards to human children? Maybe, if that's what you'd argued, but instead you'd argued that the Kender would no long find the ancient coins on the eyes of the human child's corpse to be "interesting."
There's a big difference between "uninteresting" and "upsetting." You argued the former, not the later.
But in any case, let's imagine that the crypt, rather than being a private one is a family one, and the entire Romanoff family is laid out on the byres, everyone one from sweet little Anastasia all the way up to Great-Great-Grandmama Romanoff. What's the age cut-off for Kender blubbering about innocent death and refusing to deprive the corpse of its interesting stuff? Eight? Fourteen? Twenty? Thirty? Great-Great-Grandmama there lived to a hundred just like the Queen Mum and died of natural causes. She was buried with a really cool lorgnette and it even radiates magic. Will the Kender touch that or will his player come up with some made-up reason why he can't "borrow" the lorgnette from the corpse of some rich old lady who lived to a ripe old age before she died of natural causes?
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I had like three takers on help with the build and about 100 jack-wagons that were no help, so yep went to my default poster, and continued to participate in my thread!It's not as if the OP hasn't fallen into the discussion of Kender hate himself; check KenderKin's profile. You'll notice that he and Trapdodger Barefoot (the OP) are aliases of the same person.
Successful troll is successful in the way only true Kender can wind up a large, angry mob.
Successful troll is successful in the way only true Kender can wind up a large, angry mob.
I had like three takers on help with the build and about 100 jack-wagons that were no help, so yep went to my default poster, and continued to participate in my thread!
Successful Troll agrees.
I say the extrapolation of a kender liking animals and the injury death of an animal being upseting is reasonable to extrapolate the same to a human child.......or a gully dwarf.....or a great number of things.....(vanquished foes for example)
I never said the kender would respect burial rites....
Frankly I have no idea who said a kender would respect burial rites!
You did when you jumped up and down and screamed, "Kender are not evil!" more than once and came up with every possible action for the Kender to do apart from the straightforward one of taking the coins off the dead child's eyes and thinking no more of it.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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You did when you jumped up and down and screamed, "Kender are not evil!" more than once and came up with every possible action for the Kender to do apart from the straightforward one of taking the coins off the dead child's eyes and thinking no more of it.I say the extrapolation of a kender liking animals and the injury death of an animal being upseting is reasonable to extrapolate the same to a human child.......or a gully dwarf.....or a great number of things.....(vanquished foes for example)
I never said the kender would respect burial rites....
Frankly I have no idea who said a kender would respect burial rites!
Kevin,
Kenderkin's mind is made up and resistant to facts. Heck he even admitted that stealing a loaf of bread from the baker would be perfectly fine, but he'd give the Paladin's sword back to him, because it's to get along with other PCs.
So apparently yes, you can play a kender and they play as the racial write up, until it's inconvienent.
I'd also note that if this really was a society character, he'd be kicked out the first time he 'faux handled' something from another party member.
Kevin,
Kenderkin's mind is made up and resistant to facts. Heck he even admitted that stealing a loaf of bread from the baker would be perfectly fine, but he'd give the Paladin's sword back to him, because it's to get along with other PCs.
So apparently yes, you can play a kender and they play as the racial write up, until it's inconvienent.
I'd also note that if this really was a society character, he'd be kicked out the first time he 'faux handled' something from another party member.
Sadly, this appears to be the case.
His method of playing a Kender is to use metagame knowledge of what will be perceived as cute and perky and what will be perceived as disturbing and ghoulish and steadfastly have the Kender always make the cute and perky choice, even if it makes no logical sense with the racial write up.
Then again, the racial write up also makes no logical sense. Following what's written, Kender should be descending like locusts on the world's graveyards and be treated as pariahs for it, but the original authors for all the editions have steadfastly turned a blind eye to this and any other disturbing implications.
Are you familiar with the term rail-roading (in reference to a PC)?
Why yes I am. We are talking about kender after all which only work in any given game at the GM's railroading, and are written as having to be railroaded.
I posted the 1e write up, as written in 1e you have one option, that is not the GM's doing that is how kender are made. You choose to play a race with one option in may ways.
Its like playing a paladin then b~!&&ing when you can't lie to get past the guards or claiming your being railroaded for having to follow the code.
The kenders actions are hardwired. The 1e write up I posted shows that, hell it states it clearly.
Actually the writeup is rather ambiguous. It's pointed out that a Kender can be taught to not do something that might get them killed by friends and loved ones, so its possible the kender might learn to do other things as well with respect to handling.
I find it more likely said kender would want to put coins over his eyes (preferably superglued) so he coule pester the ferryman about the dead people he's encountered when he dies, but whatever.
Also, note that Ansalon does not have this funerary tradition, and it is being shoehorned into this situation.
Last I checked, Ansalon had imported the goddess Tyche from Greco-Roman mythology and also used the D&D rules, which has included Charonodaemons, based on Charon, the boatman of the River Styx.
This isn't a shoehorning, it's a reasonable extrapolation. Since people in Ansalon are worshipping a Greco-Roman goddess (who had a coin as her personal symbol, by the way) and also have Charonodaemons who are based directly on the legend of Charon, it's perfectly reasonable to say that some kid in a crypt somewhere was buried with customs that resemble ancient Greco-Roman funerary rites or any of the later medieval Christian rites based on the same.
Or I could say that she was buried with a doll in her hands and the funerary rites of her people were such that the doll was left to protect and watch over her and give her spirit comfort in the afterlife. Same difference. Does the kender nick the doll, or does he leave it be?
One goddess and a monster or three does not equate with funerary traditions in the slightest, especially since you're muddying the waters by stretching them to include everything from Greco-Roman(*sigh* poor etrucians..) to medieval Christian rites.
Also, as pointed out in the piecemeal transcribed racial writeup, kender actually don't steal for financial gain, which is quite interesting. I don't think they'd take the coins, then, but probably something else.
Disclaimer: I've read pretty much NONE of this thread because (a) I didn't really care when it was started and (b) it is REALLY long now, so what I am going to say has probably been said a dozen times and this topic is probably nowhere near the topic.
That said.
A Kender "without Kinder hate" is a Halfling. People hated the Kender because, as a race, they were always CNK (Chaotic Neutral Kleptomaniacal). That was the whole reason they were hated and the whole reason everyone wants to play them.
Play a Halfling Rogue and get over it.
They will accuse you of cherry-picking!
You REALLY need to familiarize yourself with what these terms mean, because you keep using them inappropriately or applying them where they don't fit.
Your comments don't make sense when you use them such.
Actually the writeup is rather ambiguous. It's pointed out that a Kender can be taught to not do something that might get them killed by friends and loved ones, so its possible the kender might learn to do other things as well with respect to handling.
Sigh, no. You really need to read it and not ignore the parts that do not match your argument. The fearlessness can be reigned in a small bit but the handling is part of a kenders soul, it can not be stopped they can not turn it off. You are using one thing that has nothing to do with the other to show "proof" and it just does not work.
They have the ability to lie and believe what ever lie they told about the stealing. How can you learn not to do it when you can NEVER understand it is wrong and never EVER see it as stealing? And believe in your heart and soul you found the item?
A dog is always a dog, you can awaken him and give him human level of intelligence and he is still a dog and dos dog things. He can not help but be what he is.
A kender is a thief, the write up say they can not be other then what they are. They steal then forget they stole or believe what ever lie they tell about stealing.
The write up says they can not be other then what they are....How much clearer do you need it?
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Now you're writing into the write up. Kender do not deliberately plan thefts.
Then again, the racial write up also makes no logical sense. Following what's written, Kender should be descending like locusts on the world's graveyards and be treated as pariahs for it, but the original authors for all the editions have steadfastly turned a blind eye to this and any other disturbing implications.
Locusts don't plan their actions either. The first kender to explore a graveyard would tell all his friends about how interesting it was. Thus starts the avalanche.
Its not stealing, after all they are gonna bring it back, its not like anyone is using it or going anywhere.
Then someone asks where it came from, and they believe the lie they tell so it never gets back to the graveyard is all.
Totally different from stealing yes sir.
Yes it is that clear. They are what they are. If you have read the write up which is the very first one then yes it is 100% clear. They are thieves that can not stop and often do not know they did it. They steal anything and everything that might catch there attention 2 seconds.
It says this outright, they simply are thieves and can be nothing else. It simply can not be more clear. They even added the claw hammer thing which you guys keep dismissing as hyperbole, but given the whole of the write up, it seems unlikely it was ever meant as hyperbole at all.
They simply can not stop.
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Yes it is that clear. They are what they are. If you have read the write up which is the very first one then yes it is 100% clear. They are thieves that can not stop and often do not know they did it. They steal anything and everything that might catch there attention 2 seconds.
It says this outright, they simply are thieves and can be nothing else. It simply can not be more clear. They even added the claw hammer thing which you guys keep dismissing as hyperbole, but given the whole of the write up, it seems unlikely it was ever meant as hyperbole at all.
They simply can not stop.
Next week on Intervention: a chilling visit to Kendermore.
Sigh,goalpost moved...eh handled that is. Man you keep backpeddling and conceding points without saying your doing so. But you are proving the other side right.
With a race like the kender the player does not get to say not interesting and you would never touch, your playing something akin to a paladin, what you do is strictly defined and sometimes "often times" out of the players hands.
That room of 1000 nails, you bet one of those nails got "found" by the kender.
Kender steal everything, except when it is a bad idea to do so..totally unplayable without massive medagaming.
Next week on Intervention: a chilling visit to Kendermore.
If you read the 1e write up I posted, in any type of game but a G rated goofy one, kendermore is a nightmare of madness.
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Yep they take things and can not help themselves, but not everything is interesting enough to take!
Here's the problem. If the kender player magically decides that nothing that'll piss off the other players is interesting enough to "handle", the player is meta-gaming.
If they decide nothing that'll get the party run out of town on a rail is "interesting" enough to "handle", the player is meta-gaming.
If they decide that the MOST INTERESTING TOMB IN THE MULTIVERSE isn't terribly interesting (because, you know, there's a taboo that anyone touching anything in it will be immediately put to death), the player is meta-gaming.
Kender just do not work as a PC race without a TON of meta-gaming. And, frankly, since the only reason to play a kender is to BE a kender, it goes against what kender ARE, so playing one is more or less pointless.
Just play a wiseass halfling with sticky fingers and a functioning brain. It's easier all around, with a whole lot less mental acrobatics to make it work in a cooperative party dynamic.