Barren Realms MUD

Change kenders. Please, please, please, please change the race name.
I like the race. It might be the most powerful in the game. Change the name. As much as I like Dragonlance, it just isn't right. Change the name. I realize this would require a little work in removing all the "kenders" from the game, but it is worth the effort. Change the name, please. Did I mention that the name should be changed? Just in case I forgot, please change the name.

Why?

And.. to what?

It is just too...ripoffish.
We could all try to think of a cool name for the race.
I listed these elsewhere:

halflings
gnomes
quicklings
sprites

anything

run a quest to name the race
I feel weird about kenders and always have. I love them in dragonlance, but that is the world they belong in and should stay in. I could just go to a "dragonlance mud" (assuming one exists and I'm sure it does), but I would rather be in a world that is unique and original.
Yes, I know "barren realms" is also the name of a different game, but we are not attempting to be like that other game.

Kender is no more or less a ripoff than, say, elf or dwarf. Or the suggested "halfling." If we're going to have to start paying royalties, we'd probably have to start with the Tolkien estate and then move on to TSR before we got to the Dragonlance authors.

The whole world -- and virtually everything in the entire fantasy genre, including Dragonlance -- is incredibly derivative. I don't see anything about using the name kender that seems all that different from the names, systems, and traits we use in the rest of the game.

Could you explain your objection a little more?

Do we really want to hear more?

Kender is the only thing we have here that is exclusively dragonlance, or exclusively the work of any one person (or two in the case of weis and hickman). All the others are standard races of creatures from many different works. In one sense, they are common mythology. I know that Tolkien was the first popular work that included this (now) general fantasy recipe. Like I said, if halfling or anything else is still too much of a ripoff, then let us think of something new. There are a lot of intelligent and creative people out there...

That is a load of crap... From what I am understanding about what you are saying Stars is that Kenders are from ONLY dragonlance... what kinda crap is that? are you saying that dragonlance is the only place in history to use Kenders?

The creators of dragonlance created kenders.

And tolkien created elves. before him, elves were "the elves and the shoemaker" type creatures, tiny little magical things, not tall, beautiful near-immortal magic users. i have never heard any reputable fantasy author claim to have created anything without outside influence. if anyone were to claim something so patently rediculous, i'm sure the community as a whole would laugh them off whatever stage they happened to be on at the time. maybe dragonlance invented the name "kender" but so what? are we going to eliminate elves and dwarves because we'd be ripping off tolkein? illithids because of d&d? what about the realm of grendel, rhps, and any of the other areas which take their inspiration from other sources? BR isn't a totally unique creation-it was never intended to be, i feel sure, and i don't believe it ever could be. BR is a melange of various sources, each coloured distinctly by both the interpretation of hte original designers, adn the numerous revisions that inevitably occur with time. i see no reason whatsoever to change the name of kender to anything else simply because certain individuals disapprove of the inspirational material from which they have been derived.

You do read, don't you, Disaster? There really is no need to repeat obvious statements. As for disapproving the "inspirational material", well there was no "inspiration". Kender is a total ripoff. Although, I think you are right about illithids being a d&d creation. I never believed that we would actually change the Kender name. It is like rhps. The area should not be in Barren Realms, but many people would have a fit if it were taken out. Personally, I believe rhps should get trashed.
It appears that many people are comfortable living with discrepencies. I happen to be one who is not.

Personally I see us as a melange of things. White Tower is from WOT. Solace is also from Dragonlance. There are literary areas such as House of Usher and Elizabethan Theater, areas based off of games like Candyland or Boddy Manor (Clue), and god.. a zillion trillion other little things. If you start by changing Kender, you would have to change an awful lot that is borrowed, and I think that would hurt us.

One of the reasons why I dislike our use of the Kender name more than areas based off of other people's work is because kenders are right out in the open. People see it as soon as they sign up a new character. It might give out the wrong impression. Areas do not seem quite as directly associated with the mud, but feel more like a seperate tribute (more or less) to the original work. I would think that a mud with kenders as a race would be a dragonlance-based mud. As much as I have enjoyed reading dragonlance, I would not want to play in a whole mud under that theme.
Now, one might make the argument that our use of kenders is a tribute rather than a ripoff. I just cannot see it that way. Although there is a very short story that tries to explain how we happen to have kender in the Realms, it does nothing to distract from the name itself.
Kender = Dragonlance
race = mud
Kender + Barren Realms = ripoff
I cannot stop from associating one from the other. Kender is someone else's creation. The most basic parts of BR are part of a seperate work created by different people.
Perhaps it is because I have enjoyed the work of margaret weis and tracy hickman that I feel so uncomfortable about using some of their best work as one of our main characters. Rather than being a tribute, it looks like a ripoff. If I wrote and published a story with kenders in it, then I might find myself answering to a few lawyers. Don't get me wrong; the fear of legal retribution is not my main argument. Using kenders as one of the most basic parts of our entire mud just feels wrong.

Actually, the fear of legal retribution should take _no_ part in your argument, but I won't elaborate because I refuse to give legal advice before I pass the bar.

As for a ripoff, I can't help but think you're just picking an argument here which simply is more of your gut instinct than based in reality -- kender on BR are nothing more than an interpretation of thieves (and of Kender, from the books). I mean, nowhere in the books does it say, Kender should have these skills or those skills. What we have on BR is an interpretation of that idea.

You have many good thoughts and ideas, I just feel like more of your time could be used coming up with ideas to improve the mud instead of nitpicky things that only end up making us all bicker.

If this sounds snippy, I don't intend it to, I'm studying for the bar and I'm really tired.