The Order of the Stick

Yeah, except for the magical tendencies original D&D gnomes were actually more like Tolkien's hobbits than halflings were..

In fact, original D&D gnomes had by far the least flavor of any default race. You picked one if you wanted to play an illusionist wizard, and that was about it.

edited 14th Oct '14 11:26:18 AM by Fighteer

Exhibit A: the volcano is merely simmering and not exploding.

You know, that's a good point. That they are on an island with a volcano almost certainly means that Rich intends a full-blown Tinker gnome parody.

Edit: It would be rather amusing if we see Belkar's people at some point and realize that he was kicked out not for being evil but for being too covetous of his own property.

Edit 2: I never got that Kender were supposed to be Mary Sues — in all the Dragonlance books I read, everyone desperately locks up their valuables whenever one shows up. They survive almost entirely through having ridiculously endearing personalities and a huge helping of luck. Also, Kender who survive for very long in "big people" society learn not to "borrow" from everyone they see.

edited 14th Oct '14 11:56:14 AM by Fighteer

There's a few reasons Kender are considered annoying. Among them, almost all of the traits they're described with◊.

The person who did that image needs to grow a perspective and use fewer curse words. Scribbling all over a scan of a rulebook page does not make you cool.

Still, it's telling that a lot of Dragonlance campaigns banned Kender PCs, from what I heard way back in the day. And didn't the Dragons series have a Kender who became the pet of a god (Paladine) and Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence? I can't recall her name offhand; it's been decades since I read the books and I never got through all of them.

edited 14th Oct '14 12:02:43 PM by Fighteer

The full Wiki/{{1d4chan}} page isn't much better.

That does sound pretty Sue-ish.

I can see how the traits of the Kender class might lend themselves to creating Sue-ish characters, but in any game where character actions are given realistic consequences, they most frequently lend themselves instead to a lot of dead PCs.

edited 14th Oct '14 12:50:54 PM by Fighteer

Tasslehoff Burrfoot was the best. (And he wasn't a "pet" of Paladine. Paladine posed as a dotty old wizard and he and Tasslehoff became fast friends because they were both eccentric and silly by the standards of normal-sensible-people.)

I didn't find kender Mary Sue-ish at all. They're fearless, optimistic, and have little understanding or regard for personal property, and it continually gets them in trouble with people. Most people in-universe seem to be annoyed with kender rather than liking them, but they're tremendous fun to read about.

They're not actually like hobbits in any way - in Tolkien's works, hobbits are typically quite sedate and "middle-class" in their values and preferences; they're tougher than they think they are, but only when they need to be, and they certainly don't seek out danger like the kender do. Kender kleptomania is definitely a riff on Bilbo being a "burglar" (regardless of Bilbo not being one when he was hired for the job, and only stealing when it was necessary to stay alive, and paying people back for what he stole when he had the chance). They're certainly based off of / inspired by hobbits, but they're not really similar at all (aside from being good at throwing things).

edited 14th Oct '14 12:59:58 PM by WarriorEowyn

Not having played whatever or having heard of kenders before today, I don't think the problem is just that they steal stuff. Rather, the entry makes it sound like if you don't like them they're something wrong with you, you bigot.

The entry is shilling them a bit, most likely because if it didn't, no player who isn't deliberately trolling their DM would ever choose to play a character that screams "just lock me up please" to everyone they meet.

That is far too much text for a race that basically boils down to "All of the most annoying traits of gnomes with none of the cool stuff."

Eh, it's hardly atypical for the Dragonlance setting. All the unique races have copious flavor text.

edited 14th Oct '14 1:12:59 PM by Fighteer

Oh, there is C-Mouth. See Haley near the end here and Elan at the end of this one.

Drawing complex facial expressions on stick figure characters is a bit challenging. I don't read OOTS for the depth of its art.

This.

edited 14th Oct '14 1:20:53 PM by Fighteer

OOTS has beautiful art. But it's also really simplistic. That's kind of its whole MO.

If they're an unlikable race that nobody wants to play then why include them at all?

You'd have to ask Gary Gygax that, and he's unavailable for interviews at the moment.

Whoops, apparently it was Weis and Hickman who wrote Dragonlance for TSR. They are still alive. One imagines that some searching might turn up interviews or commentary from them on the subject.

Edit: Funny, for some reason I remember Tasslehoff (thanks for the name reminder, by the way!) being female. Oh, well.

edited 14th Oct '14 1:50:41 PM by Fighteer

I'd rather ask Gygax something, rather than that Gyjax loser. Unfortunately, he's unavailable as well. (Edit: But asking Weis and Hickman is even better.)

Jokes aside, I have a couple of points.

First, the only significant gnome we saw before was that gnome druid who teamed up with Nale, and managed to get a nice helping of Karma Houdini for it. I wonder if he's coming back in this arc. (Easy to see why a gnome druid would be evil by default, given this, huh?)

Second, the gnome aesthetic doesn't really match the Dragonlance tinker gnome aesthetic (this is very organized, where Dragonlance gnomes typically were...not). If I had to tie it to any specific portrayal of gnomes, it seems most like the gnomes from Arcanum than anything else. Which is kind of odd, since that's a bit more obscure that Dragonlance or the most well known modern fantasy portrayal of anything.

edited 14th Oct '14 1:48:04 PM by TotemicHero

Again, we're judging a lot by a single panel. We shall soon see if the gnomes are going to be played up for parody or be just a minor waypoint along the journey, but the setting itself might as well be a copy-paste of Mount Nevermind.

You're forgetting the gnome merchant that Belkar killed on the way out of Azure City.

edited 14th Oct '14 1:57:00 PM by Fighteer

Also, there's been a gnome illusionist in every single strip since #302. If you haven't noticed, it's because he's just that good.

Does he hang out with a tauren rogue, by any chance?

Of course not. He hasn't been in the comic since #297.

....

Nothing much to say about this one.