Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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I know there is nothing stopping people from making up their own, but I liked when they included them in the backgrounds.
I feel the backgrounds lack a lot of what the 2015 ones had, although now they all come with Feats.
Having the tables make it nice to have a jumping off point. On top of that there's the "Feature" which was much more roleplay focused than simply the feat they give us. IMO.
The Backgrounds now just feel....hollow, and mainly just a vehicle to pick an Origin Feat.
Maybe its just me, anyone else miss those more in-depth backgrounds? Even if it was "Suggested" or "Optional" it would be nice to have them back.
I actively and genuinely do miss them.
When creating a character, often a lot of their soft details are fuzzy and amorphous vibes. The idea is there forming, almost like how you forget a dream when you awaken, but in reverse, or like trying to remember someone you've never met but are sure you know... but there isn't any real words to convey it yet at that stage.
Having the suggestions and ones tailored to specific background & especially the ideals that had alignment suggestions, helped sometimes to give a small building block to build around, like a nucleating agent to help speed those vibes into an idea that can be communicated.
The details might get changed or refined later or edited later, as you play the character and feel them out & they assert themselves some, but it's good to have a quick snapshot, especially so other people can look and go "Ok, I have an *idea* of the narrative archetype this character fills some."
One of my favorite 5e characters in a game I played rather than DMed was a Hexblade (later in 5.5 remade to Archfey) Warlock with the Haunted One background, and the first night after session 0 they came to me in a dream kind of, so while trying to think of them later with the table I had that vague dream like recollection of them and few actual words, but the suggestions in the background gave me a good quick shorthand to give the DM a rough sketch.
The character eventually evolved away from those original ideas and some of the first concepts just didn't really make the cut in the end and had to be changed entirely (I would often take 2 for each category, or 1 from each category and then 1 from another similar background, as nothing says you can't take inspiration from other backgrounds) but if I read the chart back I can still recognize which ones I picked because I can still see the rough sketch of the character in them.
So I just.. I guess think they're helpful and that at worst with their inclusion you just.. don't use them.
Because Robots.
They were done away with because people didn't like being locked into them(despite not really being). Having more overt permission to put in what people wanted in those spaces was part of 10 years of feedback.
It's part of adapting to a world that's seen the possibilities of character creation open up thanks to live plays & podcasts.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Weird. Never encountered the pressure for that back in the day.
Honestly, the Backgrounds now feel empty and a bit "low effort" as a result. Literally 2-3 sentences and *possibly* a new feat.
Yeah, my table missed them so much, we decided to use old backgrounds for our new campaign even though we will be playing with 2024 rules mostly.
I don't - I never used them.
Most character backgrounds for me or my players did not need these things as they built them in and act on choices their character make not "Oh my randomly rolled flaw says I have to do X."