Fishmalks, Kender, and douchebags: where does the blame lie?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 1:50 am

Indoctrination 1.0:
Show them what you want them to like all of the earlier years, like, kinda up to maybe 10 years old. then let them watch crap once they like what you want them to like and they will disregard it as crap.

As for Topic:
Kender: Blam! Blam Blam Blam Blam! *reload* Blam!
I still play SR3, and we basically have one of those in the group . .
Female Elven Lesbian Slut Hobby Prostitute Magical Razor Girl Molly Millions type Kender.
My Troll broke one of her Fingers the first time she stole something from him, told her he'd go for the whole hand next time. Broke her whole hand next time, told her he'd go for the whole arm next time. Broke her arm badly enough for it to have been replaced by cybernetic replacement.
Consequences!
Yeah, basically shot the whole character concept, but the group's better off like this, because we actually got something usefull into the Arm as well.
If the guy wants to play the character, we bascially call him Arm with some flesh on it.
It worked. Never tried stealing from my troll again.

Fishmalk had something to do with malks making out with fish? O.o
I thought it had something to do with malks sitting on the ground in a corner going:"fiiish?" when adressed . .

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 3:49 am

Here. You can see the picture that started it all.

http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Fishmalk

Don't forget the dude in his underwear bleeding into a goblet.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 5:09 am

Chamomile wrote:No, a stranger in a strange land seals a drop of its blood inside of a MacGuffin and the gods are able to use that as a bartering chit to get it to leave. Or something along those lines. Granted, I was, like, fourteen when I read those books, but I actually liked Tasslehoff. He was the only one for whom constantly going on new adventures actually made sense, and at least he had the decency to bounce around time while he was doing it instead of being part of the huge pileup of world-changing events that all occur within the same twenty years or so, starting from the first Dragonlance books and going on until the writers ran out of ideas and finally started mining out the rest of the mythos.

It actually probably has more to do with the rest of the characters (with the exception of Fizban and Raistlin) being flat and colorless as a newspaper. I seriously never got through the original trilogy because the characters were so boring. The second set was better because Raistlin was the star. But even that quickly became insufferable.

I'm told the books get better after all the original party dies, but fuck you book, you don't get to be boring for six books (that I read) and still ask me to waste my money coming back for more.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 5:29 am

darkmaster wrote:It actually probably has more to do with the rest of the characters (with the exception of Fizban and Raistlin) being flat and colorless as a newspaper.

Tanis' familial/romantic situation was pretty interesting, but the man himself was a stock of wood.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Jan 07, 2012 6:28 am

Let me ask this, would a recent character I played be considered a fishmalk?

I was playing a half-orc sorcerer (battle variant). I played him as comic relief. Some examples of things he would do:

1. Loudly proclaim himself as a barbarian (he had a strength of 18, a longspear, and claimed that Enlarge Person was his barbarian rage, that detect magic was his barbarian senses, and color spray was him summoning the flames of Garyx to help slay his foes)

2. Took things NPC's said overly literally. (An NPC told him to find a serial killer. He immediately picked up the couch to look under it for the killer)

3. Was loud, outgoing, and harassed the female PC's who were played by male players (One of which was oddly into it and kind of freaked me out a bit...)

However, despite his unusual behavior, he did his best to keep the group together, took battle and life or death situations very seriously, and in the end did more damage than any other party member (including the actual barbarian).

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 6:34 am

As for the title question of "where does the blame lie" I say it is forever with the people at the table. I had no intention of letting anyone play a kender ever. A friend of mine begged me to allow him once, and his character is one of the best I've ever had at my table to this day. I have had tons of people fuck up being a simple rogue in comparison. Hell just letting women play men and men play women has gone wrong a number of times. While I think that Chaotic Neutral and playing a kender makes being an ass at the table a bit more accessible I'm more inclined to believe that at the end of the day, its the player that makes or breaks it hands down.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 6:37 am

whargarbl "per se" doesn't mean "exactly" or "precisely" it means "itself" - literally

WHARGARBL

Anyway, the kleptomaniac character concept can actually be entertaining, but it takes a particularly good player to pull it off. When played by, say, a social/narrative fuckwit, it just gets in the way of a good story, irritates everyone, and makes me pour another martini.

On the other hand, a well played klepto is one whose thievery works itself into the story by working with other players or the DM to create story opportunities. This is hard and takes work so no one actually does it.

The same thing can be said for the insane/inane character. I've seen (very few) games where someone played, say, a Rifts Crazy and enriched everyone's experience. On the other hand, I've seen quite a few games where a crazy ruined the game.

I dunno. With great power comes great responsibility, I guess.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 6:45 am

PoliteNewb wrote:
TheFlatline wrote: For an entire generation "the star wars trilogy" means episodes 1-3.
If that is true (and I hope to god it isn't), it is the fault of the older generation, who let their children watch crap and didn't show them GOOD movies, some of which have the title "Star Wars".

I have 4 kids (2-10), and none of them have seen any of the prequel movies. Because I don't let them. They watch the original trilogy, and they love it.

...there are good movies that have Star Wars in the title?

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 6:46 am

Your Face: it will be defiled with a glob of feces

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 7:27 am

NineInchNall wrote:Anyway, the kleptomaniac character concept can actually be entertaining, but it takes a particularly good player to pull it off. When played by, say, a social/narrative fuckwit, it just gets in the way of a good story, irritates everyone, and makes me pour another martini.

On the other hand, a well played klepto is one whose thievery works itself into the story by working with other players or the DM to create story opportunities. This is hard and takes work so no one actually does it.

I've *never* seen a klepto PC concept run with any real success. It sets up a conundrum. If you're a true klepto, you *can't help yourself*, which means you're going to steal shit from the party. Once or twice is an interesting roleplaying experience. Anything more than that is a pain in the ass.

Not to mention if you're *into* a story that's running and it suddenly takes a tangent because now you are hunted by the law because Dipshit over there can't keep his hands out of the cookie jar it's no fun for anyone, especially the DM.

The other option is to put it on the back burner. You might as well play a neutral evil character and just steal shit because it helps you (and you avoid stealing shit from your party because they keep you from getting killed).

Playing a character who overcomes or comes to terms with his klepto urges, that's a workable character concept. "I'm a klepto" is player speak for "I'm going to fuck with this game whenever I get bored, so entertain me."

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 8:27 am

I've been looking at "how do you run a decent kleptomaniac character anyway" since reading this thread, and the conclusion I've come to is that you steal from the other party members once or twice somewhere early on, and then everyone assumes that it still happens periodically and the whole party just gets in the habit of doing a quick inventory every morning and demanding their stuff back. To my understanding, the klepto is not necessarily compelled to keep the stuff he takes.

It is one of those things where everyone has to be on board with it before you try it, though.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 9:35 am

What Chamomile said.

Seriously, it's like playing any other type of character, be it wizard or rogue or what have you. You pipe up and make a point to bring your character's shtick into the spotlight every now and then. Wizards shouldn't be constantly fucking with people's (or their own) belongings as experimental materials for new spells; rogues shouldn't be stabbing or thwacking people in the back all the time as a way to practice sneak attacking. It's all about making the character's personality traits known and then occasionally reinforcing or reiterating said traits when appropriate.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 9:37 am

Chamomile wrote:I've been looking at "how do you run a decent kleptomaniac character anyway" since reading this thread

It's a stupid thing that doesn't deserve the consideration but here is how you do it.

Kleptomania is a special ability the character has. They don't just steal things, they AUTOMATICALLY steal all or at least a lot of their allied party members plot key items, cash, and minor cashable (but otherwise worthless) valuables. They do not steal direct combat or other ability relevant items at all.

This results in the Kleptomaniac character acting as the party "banker" and "plot key" round up guy. Whenever another character wants to get out the ice key of shandor or the doohickey of whatsitnoth they grab Klepto boy and pull it out of his gullet. Whenever they go shopping they bring Klepto girl and shake her out on the counter when they need to pay.

No one actually LOSES anything, and you don't have to adjudicate an endless stream of pick pocket rolls and deal with and do the book keeping for endless failed or successful pick pocket results. Yet the klepto player gets to do the annoying "Lolz Imma Klepto!" moment when they are reminded everytime they are used as the party banker, a role which if filled is usually not especially interesting.

I'm not saying there is a similar solution for every jerk ass character concept. Or that kender and friends in particular are in ANY way a good idea, or even worth talking about. But it looks like Kleptomania is actually mildly doable in a D&D style game and as such probably a poor example.

Sociopaths, psycho killers and the just plain relentlessly uncooperative are probably worse.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 9:39 am

PhoneLobster wrote:
Chamomile wrote:I've been looking at "how do you run a decent kleptomaniac character anyway" since reading this thread
It's a stupid thing that doesn't deserve the consideration but here is how you do it.

Kleptomania is a special ability the character has. They don't just steal things, they AUTOMATICALLY steal all or at least a lot of their allied party members plot key items, cash, and minor cashable (but otherwise worthless) valuables. They do not steal direct combat or other ability relevant items at all.

This results in the Kleptomaniac character acting as the party "banker" and "plot key" round up guy. Whenever another character wants to get out the ice key of shandor or the doohickey of whatsitnoth they grab Klepto boy and pull it out of his gullet. Whenever they go shopping they bring Klepto girl and shake her out on the counter when they need to pay.

I had seriously JUST been thinking that Kleptomania really would be something of a party bonus.

"What? This key to the library--silver, big sapphire on it, not unlike the one I'm holding here?"

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 3:17 pm

So you'd get an entire party of who keep on countering / stealing shit from each other?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 5:07 pm

a party made up entirely of kenders . .

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 8:23 pm

Stahlseele wrote:a party made up entirely of kenders . .

Would honestly not be any different, really, from a party of goblins from Tome.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 6:25 am

I played a 3e kender once, but my take on it was that I wasn't going to steal anything. If the DM wanted to say that something made it into my possession I would give it back as soon as I was aware of such an event.

I might be wildly curious and grab things first before handing them over, but I'd never actually take something from another character without stating something like "oooh, your ring is shiny!" to give them a chance to refuse my tactile curiosity, and if they indulged me then give it back a round or two later after ogling it, and certainly never doing this in combat situations.

It's not exactly what's in the rules text, but I never read the text back then and thought that would be an acceptable interpretation that would not be irritating as fuck.

That campaign didn't last very long at all due to scheduling conflicts tho so I can't say how it turned out.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 10:48 pm

When my friend made his kender he didn't tae things very often early on (from the party). He thought that the party was his family and that everything in the party belonged to everyone. He would freely take and use the party member's gear and every so often take things along the road that he got curious about but it was mostly inconsequential minor items.

He never took anything of critical importance to other characters because he barely ever took anything he couldn't actually use (he was the only small character) and while he was childish he played up the 'innocent' angle so the few times he was caught and it would've caused conflict in character the others were always forgiving and most were patient. There was inter party conflict but none of it revolved around his thievery.

He initially caused conflict with the party rogue/fighter because he wanted to save more people while the fighter/rogue wanted to avoid trouble. He also rubbed the party caster the wrong way because he wouldn't shut up and kept making it out to seem like they were best friends though the wizard was playing the goth lone wolf type. The elf, out of everyone, was the one most offended by the guy because he wouldn't shut up and at one point had stolen his ring of mindblank and replaced it with a ring of fire immunity. Though the switch ended up accidentally saving both of their lives when they got separated later on.

I blame bad gaming experiences on people just being people. People who want to cause trouble will do so no matter what the rules say and its when that happens that I will just leave. I would rather not play DnD than to have somebody suck the fun out of it for me.

MartinHarper · Post by **MartinHarper** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 11:35 pm

MGuy wrote:The elf, out of everyone, was the one most offended by the guy because he wouldn't shut up and at one point had stolen his ring of mindblank and replaced it with a ring of fire immunity. Though the switch ended up accidentally saving both of their lives when they got separated later on.

The "no concept of property" thing should work both ways like that. The kender was just storing his ring of fire immunity on the elf's finger "for safe keeping".

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:17 am

there is nothing wrong with kender.. it is just people are too stupid to play them to the games strengths. kender just dont believe in ownership and are like little kleptos.

most people sadly play them like thugs or bandits trying to pocket everything that isnt nailed down. it isnt a problem with the game concept.. just the players unable to grasp the concept of the kender.

people opinions are colored by how the idiots they have met in life have played kenders before, rather than thinking about it or discussing how a kender would act. because you are playing with a douche.. doesnt mean the concept of kender is a bad one. same for chaotic evil characters in parties with paladins these things can work with mature gamers, but not often with kids(of any age).