Maybe a better way to phrase that is, "What's the difference between a class and a background?"
The reason I ask, is that there should be something the player gain from this distinction... and given how small a background it, it's likely more important for new players than veterans.
You can be a Soldier Wizard, or a Soldier Fighter. You can be an Acolyte Cleric, or an Acolyte Barbarian. Background doesn't at all describe your play-style.
Maybe backgrounds are supposed to represent how you display outside of combat, while classes are in combat. I dunno.
But this question brings me to this conclusion: Backgrounds determine who you were before you were an adventurer. Your class is completely unrelated and tells you what to expect your character's play style to be.
Like sure, you can be more or less aggressive, but a character with heavy armor and no magic is much more likely to punch things. The style chosen by the mechanics of your character is punching.
Your background doesn't tell you what to expect out of the game. Your class does.
The background gives you help in establishing your character for role-play - thus it does inform you as to what to expect out of the RP side of the game.
Class: Your magical powers and/or fighting prowess and the way you've trained to use them. As I mention below, what you've done in the past may help inform which class you pick, but class is just a combination of the type of way you battle and use abilities, and whether or not you have large quantities of magic. In short, your class is just the type of warrior you are, as well as whether or not that warrior emphasizes battle in their fighting. Class also allows you to do some things out of combat, but those are mostly just related to the class + subclass you picked and what abilities would make sense out of combat for them.
Background: What you've been doing in your life. A few details you picked up while doing it. Backgrounds can also provide an explanation for why a character's class is their class.
In 5e, there is not enough emphasis on background and you can just say the class and race of a PC, and sum up most of their stats. That being said, as I explain HERE, 1DD does a great job of making your background actually matter; in short, 1DD gives you a specialist feat to help represent some of the more important things that you would have learned while practicing your background. (1DD also uses a build-your-own-background system which is great.)
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Backgrounds do provide some benefits outside of combat including equipment, proficiencies and languages. For example, the Outlander Background:
Feature: Wanderer
You have an excellent memory for maps and geography, and you can always recall the general layout of terrain, settlements, and other features around you. In addition, you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.
Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Survival Tool Proficiencies: One type of musical instrument Languages: One of your choice Equipment: A staff, a hunting trap, a trophy from an animal you killed, a set of traveler’s clothes, and a pouch containing 10 gp
So a character of any class with this background has these abilities - maybe they can remember a map of the dungeon they got a glimpse of. Or it may mean that they can lighten their load and carry fewer provisions (ever look at how much 1 day's worth of provisions and water weighs?). Not a huge benefit sure, but not nothing. And it gives you some suggested character traits - so like Farling said above - it helps give your character some personality to help you role-play.
"...at worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
In 5e, there is not enough emphasis on background and you can just say the class and race of a PC, and sum up most of their stats. That being said, as I explain HERE, 1DD does a great job of making your background actually matter; in short, 1DD gives you a specialist feat to help represent some of the more important things that you would have learned while practicing your background. (1DD also uses a build-your-own-background system which is great.)
Personally, I see 1DD as a step backwards - the last thing 5e needs is fewer character customisation options. Changing out a unique, flavourful feature with limited combat utility and only accessible through your background for the more generic type of feature doesn’t make backgrounds more flavourful or interesting - it just makes them another point for pure optimisation. A better system would be to keep the backgrounds as-is, then just give everyone a first level feat.
Which brings me back to the thread - presently backgrounds do a pretty good job at reflecting who you were by providing you specific knowledge or NPC reactions based on how your character developed. The features, while minor, flavourfully represent your character knowing their way around certain circumstances or having a reputation. A lot of that is lost in 1DD’s play test version of backgrounds, further making backgrounds a rather arbitrary portion of character development.
I tend to pick a background based on 'what was I before I gained a level in this class?'
Sometimes this can lead directly to your class. Like criminal > Rogue or Acolyte > Cleric or Scholar > Wizard etc. But it doesn't have to. For example in a star wars 5e game I'm joining soon, my engineer character has the urchin background because they used to live on the streets before.
There are also times where more than one could apply. Like a character of mine who was a noble in their childhood but a criminal in their adolesence, I ended up picking criminal over noble because it fit better with their more immediate situation going into the campaign.
Class is what you do, especially in combat. Background is who you used to be, which may or may not still gel with your character at present. Someone with criminal in their background might have later become a guard or soldier with the fighter class for example.
Ultimately backgrounds are useful for RP but not as defining for your character mechanically as a class in terms of your general skillset.
Backgrounds determine who you were before you were an adventurer. Your class is completely unrelated and tells you what to expect your character's play style to be.
I mean yes. This, basically.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Why does your background provide any actual benefit, instead of just being text on a line, like your alignment and deity?
Because it's a significant part of the character and I guess the developers felt like it should be reflected somewhere in the mechanics? I mean they are almost always out of combat benefits. Also it seems like they are moving more in the direction of Backgrounds playing a greater part, mechanically, if 1DD has anything to say about it. Which I am pleased with, honestly. In the playtest Background is where you get your initial ASI from.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Why does your background provide any actual benefit, instead of just being text on a line, like your alignment and deity?
Because your character didn't exist in a void before they started adventuring. The backgrounds give you a few extra skills and talents that you might be able to use. I feel like they kind of represent the "generality" of everyone's early life - some of the general skills you might have picked up along the way. Compare it to real life: I got into riding mountain bikes, I worked at a school for the deaf and learned sign language, I took a wilderness survival class - if I learned how to cast spells and went adventuring now I would still have all those skills in my repertoire.
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"...at worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
Why does your background provide any actual benefit, instead of just being text on a line, like your alignment and deity?
You spent the first 20+ years of your life doing something - your background - and you are a fresh level 1 <your class here> right now, with little real experience of that class.
When there isn't something on their character sheet - a button to press, so to speak - that would allow a roll or a means to contribute to a skill, task, etc., my players can always simply say, "I am X background. Can I roll something anyway?"
My answer is almost always, yes, followed by a d20 and some skill or thing that makes sense.
ex: cloistered scholar barbarian. Sounds weird at first. Early years as a delinquent. Mom and dad had enough and in my society, it was either, enlist in military, go to jail, or be confined to the dank and dark of an old library - gandalf looking for answers about the ring style. Those around me - other students (delinquents?) and masters were inclined to magic - wiz/sorc. Like those with nothing else to do in prison, I did pushups. Honed my physical form, but yes, I read a lot. I had to. Fast forward ten years
I'm a barbarian. My character sheet has Int as a dump stat. I'm muscular - the typical Conan things right? Going way back, there's my days in that old stuffy library. I'm the front of the party in a fight vs. a necromancer/Dr. Frankenstein sort. We kill him, take his loot and find some old books with skin for covers - likely manuals of golem creation. Something is off, probably cursed. A party member really wants to keep it, but the option to Identify is very far out. The party deliberates when I finally say, "I'm not an Int guy and have never used my smarts, but can I take a good long look at the book and see if there's something that hints at it being cursed. DM says, give me an Int roll, but add proficiency because, you know books!
Not a real thing but just an idea. Let background fuel an interesting story and when it comes to mechanical bits, ask your DM if it fits.
Backgrounds are the single best element of the switch from 4th ed to 5th ed, and the culmination of years of D&D struggling to be more than a war game. D&D has called itself a roleplaying game since its inception, but it has never offered good opportunities for establishing character or motivation until this edition. Backgrounds have been essential in moving away from a simplistic hack-and-slash and moving towards a narrative experience. Crucially, backgrounds are how the system brings in personality, traits, bonds, and flaws--which are the sine qua non of character. For decades, the game floundered through the medium of alignment, trying to articulate anything like a character's spirit. Now players have the tools they need not only to fight a grue but also to explain who did the fighting and why words weren't enough.
My guess is because classes almost entirely combat oriented and, as @eapiv mentions, backgrounds are more for roleplay, they're skills from the past you can draw upon that don't really fit within the class. Some complement or even replace class fantasy: anyone with the Outlander background better fits my idea of what a Ranger is more than the class itself. A Rogue without Criminal/Spy, or some other background with intrigue where they can use Thieves' Cant, is probably going to be atypical to what the class fantasy is.
I agree with @eapiv above regarding D&D's lack of tangible roleplay opportunities and motivation, and its present struggle. PHB backgrounds are mostly bad: It's one thing to require the Soldier background to gain access to military bases and speak to subordinates, it's another to need to be a Sage to use a library. Surely Clerics should get the Acolyte's Shelter of the Faithful without requiring a background, or Bards make a living from entertainment without the Entertainer? I suppose it's easy to judge now the dust has settled on alignment taking a backseat for character concepts.
One D&D's move to letting players make their own backgrounds with appropriate feats and starting gear is something I far prefer. I would still like to see setting-appropriate suggestions for sourcebooks and adventures with the flavour text of before. My preference is however skewed by the hope that WotC will add more feats to the game that complement the new background system.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
Personally, I see 1DD as a step backwards - the last thing 5e needs is fewer character customisation options. Changing out a unique, flavourful feature with limited combat utility and only accessible through your background for the more generic type of feature doesn’t make backgrounds more flavourful or interesting - it just makes them another point for pure optimisation. A better system would be to keep the backgrounds as-is, then just give everyone a first level feat.
In 5e, most backgrounds didn't actually have "unique, flavorful features"; they usually had mostly useless abilities that rarely came up in-game. Even the most useful background features such as an Outlander's Wanderer ability only mattered if you entered a forest with a large party without much rations. And even then, it relied heavily on DM involvement.
Feats are not generic; there are so many of them, and each one has such cool and unique abilities that you can play for use and never feel like you are using a similar feat twice. The build-your-own-background system makes who your character was actually relevant to who they are now, and maybe its just me, but I think this system adds far more options for customisation than it removes. Anyways, I guess we can just agree to disagree.
Backgrounds determine who you were before you were an adventurer. Your class is completely unrelated and tells you what to expect your character's play style to be.
I mean yes. This, basically.
Not necessarily. I can have the Criminal/Spy background and be a spy who worked with an adventuring group to steal from the authorities as my background and then have my campaign be the exact same thing. A better explanation is that your background is just what you did in the past and your class is the special powers/combat archetypes and maneuvers you learned to help do those things or to help you in the future when the campaign starts.
Personally, I see 1DD as a step backwards - the last thing 5e needs is fewer character customisation options. Changing out a unique, flavourful feature with limited combat utility and only accessible through your background for the more generic type of feature doesn’t make backgrounds more flavourful or interesting - it just makes them another point for pure optimisation. A better system would be to keep the backgrounds as-is, then just give everyone a first level feat.
In 5e, most backgrounds didn't actually have "unique, flavorful features"; they usually had mostly useless abilities that rarely came up in-game. Even the most useful background features such as an Outlander's Wanderer ability only mattered if you entered a forest with a large party without much rations. And even then, it relied heavily on DM involvement.
Feats are not generic; there are so many of them, and each one has such cool and unique abilities that you can play for use and never feel like you are using a similar feat twice. The build-your-own-background system makes who your character was actually relevant to who they are now, and maybe its just me, but I think this system adds far more options for customisation than it removes. Anyways, I guess we can just agree to disagree.
As I said, I think players should have access to first level feats - just they should also have access to the flavourful background-specific elements of existing backgrounds. 5e already has pretty awful options for customisation and very little in the way of customising your character beyond your class. Backgrounds having unique, background only features are one of the few places where customisation based around roleplaying actually exist.
Replacing, rather than supplementing, background traits with feats, removes something unique about the game which fills a much-needed niche and adds to the sorely lacking customisation options available to players. There is no sensible reason for them to completely changed backgrounds, when they can, and should, just add a better feat system starting at level 1.
As I said, I think players should have access to first level feats - just they should also have access to the flavourful background-specific elements of existing backgrounds.
In practice, those elements are almost totally useless, and should either be part of a skill (e.g. the Wanderer feature of the Outlander background should just be part of Survival) or a generic "Contacts: you are assumed to have known people before you became an adventurer, who you will trade favors with. Assume they are Friendly towards you, but you are expected to be equally willing to assist them. Details should be worked out with the DM."
As I said, I think players should have access to first level feats - just they should also have access to the flavourful background-specific elements of existing backgrounds. 5e already has pretty awful options for customisation and very little in the way of customising your character beyond your class. Backgrounds having unique, background only features are one of the few places where customisation based around roleplaying actually exist.
Replacing, rather than supplementing, background traits with feats, removes something unique about the game which fills a much-needed niche and adds to the sorely lacking customisation options available to players. There is no sensible reason for them to completely changed backgrounds, when they can, and should, just add a better feat system starting at level 1.
I understand that you think players should have first level feats -- what I don't understand is why you seem to think that the background specific features are worth sacrificing a build-your-own-background for. Almost all of those background specific features are basically useless, and they all rely heavily on DM involvement. I gave you an example of one of the "best" background specific features and how it rarely came up in the game in this post, but most background specific features are even less useful than that.
Take the Acolytes "Shelter of the Faithful"; it effectively says that if someone worships the exact same god as you, then you "command their respect" and can get enough gold pieces from them to survive. The DM went out of his way to add encounters with other groups of people who share your religion... Even then though, your feature will give you practically nothing.
Take the Soldiers "Military Rank": If you meet soldiers who served the exact same "military organization" as you respect you a bit. This is another background specific feature that rarely comes into play. Even if it does come into play, it only lets you exert a little bit of influence and gain access to low level places.
In short, you may want to give everyone first level feats, but the way you are proposing would come at the cost of the build-your-own-background system, since you cant exactly have every player build features to help their character with RP and expect those features to be balanced. So not only would it get rid of this wonderful new customization system, but it would also confuse new players by getting rid of the rubrics that offered to pick the feats for them and make all new players go through the long list of feats and choose to pick the "Skilled" (ASI) feat or a different, potentially better feat, every time they tried to make a level 1 character. At higher levels. that would be fine, but it is much better for new players playing a level 1 character to have a sample background with that sorted out for them if they want.
Anyways, that's not the main problem; the main problem is that this would involve axing the awesome build-your-own background system. Quite frankly, I don't think the limited, not very useful background specific features are worth removing this. The former system offers much, much more customization than the latter. Honestly, maybe I'm crazy to think this, but background specific features were mostly just a waste of space in 5e since they came up so little.
TL;DR: I get where you are coming from, but I disagree.
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As I said, I think players should have access to first level feats - just they should also have access to the flavourful background-specific elements of existing backgrounds.
Those elements in the current version are pretty much DM dependent on how well they work, as others have said. If you're a noble, it's up to the DM to decide how easy it is for you to get an audience with a local ruler. Sure, in the text, it says you can have a meeting "when needed" but really, it's easy for the DM to just say, "They're, ummm, washing their hair right now. Come back later."
In 1D&D, you can still do the exact same thing. Create a background and say you're a noble. Then, when the time comes to meet the local ruler, you remind the DM you're a noble, so it should be easier for you to get an audience. In the end, it's still DM dependent. The only change is there's not a specific text entry describing it.
Beyond that, you can argue the 1D&D version offers you more expansive options. In 5e, the text is limiting -- here's the one thing you get from your background. IN 1D&D you can say, well, I'm a noble, so I should be better able to recognize the heraldry of surrounding noble houses. Or I'm a noble, so I should be able to go into another noble's court and fairly quickly suss out who's who. You can try that in the 5e version, but in that case there's the old "things only do what they say they do." 1D&D leaves it more open-ended in role playing situations. The only limitation becomes how good of a case you can make to your DM for getting some kind of help in a situation.
[Re: Background features, since there would be too many quote blocks]
I have never seen D&D players so vehemently advocating for removing features from the game--especially when their only defenses of removing the system boil down to "we should remove this system because some bad DMs do not use it" and "what if we present this issue as a false diachodemy where you have to have either the current system or you have the new system." Surely you can see how both those arguments are a bit on the ridiculous side.
For starters, let's look at who the current background system helps--it helps players who do not write in-depth backstory have an "in" to certain groups which both gives them a mechanical advantage so they are not penalized for not writing a backstory and it helps DMs who might not be the most skilled with applying backstories to their actual games. Removing the system makes life easier for lazy DMs who wanted to ignore a portion of the rules or who construed the background rules aggressively against their players. Removing a system that helps people who deserve help just because bad DMs do not like it is rather silly.
As for the "but the new system is better" argument--yeah, it is better. As I said twice now, there should be feats at level 1. Guess what folks, Wizards could easily say when you choose your background you get "[tool/language/proficiency combinations], 1 background-exclusive trait designed for roleplaying, and 1 feature." That would very clearly be the better system as it provides a massive increase in number of customization options.
Or, you know, we can just let Wizards take customization options off the table for everyone because we had a bad experience with a DM not letting us use our own features. That seems reasonable.
Bringing it back to the thread, having a certain skill you can only have learned through years and years of training--even if it is just RP dependent--still makes sense for your background. That is a skill which takes specialized experiences beyond a feat (something you can get every 4 levels in your class--or whatever the new feat system ends up being), and does a better job at further differentiating your background and where you came from than your current job.
Maybe a better way to phrase that is, "What's the difference between a class and a background?"
The reason I ask, is that there should be something the player gain from this distinction... and given how small a background it, it's likely more important for new players than veterans.
You can be a Soldier Wizard, or a Soldier Fighter. You can be an Acolyte Cleric, or an Acolyte Barbarian. Background doesn't at all describe your play-style.
Maybe backgrounds are supposed to represent how you display outside of combat, while classes are in combat. I dunno.
But this question brings me to this conclusion: Backgrounds determine who you were before you were an adventurer. Your class is completely unrelated and tells you what to expect your character's play style to be.
Like sure, you can be more or less aggressive, but a character with heavy armor and no magic is much more likely to punch things. The style chosen by the mechanics of your character is punching.
Your background doesn't tell you what to expect out of the game. Your class does.
Do you have any different takes
The background gives you help in establishing your character for role-play - thus it does inform you as to what to expect out of the RP side of the game.
Class: Your magical powers and/or fighting prowess and the way you've trained to use them. As I mention below, what you've done in the past may help inform which class you pick, but class is just a combination of the type of way you battle and use abilities, and whether or not you have large quantities of magic. In short, your class is just the type of warrior you are, as well as whether or not that warrior emphasizes battle in their fighting. Class also allows you to do some things out of combat, but those are mostly just related to the class + subclass you picked and what abilities would make sense out of combat for them.
Background: What you've been doing in your life. A few details you picked up while doing it. Backgrounds can also provide an explanation for why a character's class is their class.
In 5e, there is not enough emphasis on background and you can just say the class and race of a PC, and sum up most of their stats. That being said, as I explain HERE, 1DD does a great job of making your background actually matter; in short, 1DD gives you a specialist feat to help represent some of the more important things that you would have learned while practicing your background. (1DD also uses a build-your-own-background system which is great.)
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HERE.Backgrounds do provide some benefits outside of combat including equipment, proficiencies and languages. For example, the Outlander Background:
Feature: Wanderer
Tool Proficiencies: One type of musical instrument
Languages: One of your choice
Equipment: A staff, a hunting trap, a trophy from an animal you killed, a set of traveler’s clothes, and a pouch containing 10 gp
"...at worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
Personally, I see 1DD as a step backwards - the last thing 5e needs is fewer character customisation options. Changing out a unique, flavourful feature with limited combat utility and only accessible through your background for the more generic type of feature doesn’t make backgrounds more flavourful or interesting - it just makes them another point for pure optimisation. A better system would be to keep the backgrounds as-is, then just give everyone a first level feat.
Which brings me back to the thread - presently backgrounds do a pretty good job at reflecting who you were by providing you specific knowledge or NPC reactions based on how your character developed. The features, while minor, flavourfully represent your character knowing their way around certain circumstances or having a reputation. A lot of that is lost in 1DD’s play test version of backgrounds, further making backgrounds a rather arbitrary portion of character development.
I tend to pick a background based on 'what was I before I gained a level in this class?'
Sometimes this can lead directly to your class. Like criminal > Rogue or Acolyte > Cleric or Scholar > Wizard etc. But it doesn't have to. For example in a star wars 5e game I'm joining soon, my engineer character has the urchin background because they used to live on the streets before.
There are also times where more than one could apply. Like a character of mine who was a noble in their childhood but a criminal in their adolesence, I ended up picking criminal over noble because it fit better with their more immediate situation going into the campaign.
Class is what you do, especially in combat. Background is who you used to be, which may or may not still gel with your character at present. Someone with criminal in their background might have later become a guard or soldier with the fighter class for example.
Ultimately backgrounds are useful for RP but not as defining for your character mechanically as a class in terms of your general skillset.
I mean yes. This, basically.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Why does your background provide any actual benefit, instead of just being text on a line, like your alignment and deity?
Because it's a significant part of the character and I guess the developers felt like it should be reflected somewhere in the mechanics? I mean they are almost always out of combat benefits. Also it seems like they are moving more in the direction of Backgrounds playing a greater part, mechanically, if 1DD has anything to say about it. Which I am pleased with, honestly. In the playtest Background is where you get your initial ASI from.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Because your character didn't exist in a void before they started adventuring. The backgrounds give you a few extra skills and talents that you might be able to use. I feel like they kind of represent the "generality" of everyone's early life - some of the general skills you might have picked up along the way. Compare it to real life: I got into riding mountain bikes, I worked at a school for the deaf and learned sign language, I took a wilderness survival class - if I learned how to cast spells and went adventuring now I would still have all those skills in my repertoire.
"...at worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
You spent the first 20+ years of your life doing something - your background - and you are a fresh level 1 <your class here> right now, with little real experience of that class.
When there isn't something on their character sheet - a button to press, so to speak - that would allow a roll or a means to contribute to a skill, task, etc., my players can always simply say, "I am X background. Can I roll something anyway?"
My answer is almost always, yes, followed by a d20 and some skill or thing that makes sense.
ex: cloistered scholar barbarian. Sounds weird at first. Early years as a delinquent. Mom and dad had enough and in my society, it was either, enlist in military, go to jail, or be confined to the dank and dark of an old library - gandalf looking for answers about the ring style. Those around me - other students (delinquents?) and masters were inclined to magic - wiz/sorc. Like those with nothing else to do in prison, I did pushups. Honed my physical form, but yes, I read a lot. I had to. Fast forward ten years
I'm a barbarian. My character sheet has Int as a dump stat. I'm muscular - the typical Conan things right? Going way back, there's my days in that old stuffy library. I'm the front of the party in a fight vs. a necromancer/Dr. Frankenstein sort. We kill him, take his loot and find some old books with skin for covers - likely manuals of golem creation. Something is off, probably cursed. A party member really wants to keep it, but the option to Identify is very far out. The party deliberates when I finally say, "I'm not an Int guy and have never used my smarts, but can I take a good long look at the book and see if there's something that hints at it being cursed. DM says, give me an Int roll, but add proficiency because, you know books!
Not a real thing but just an idea. Let background fuel an interesting story and when it comes to mechanical bits, ask your DM if it fits.
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Backgrounds are the single best element of the switch from 4th ed to 5th ed, and the culmination of years of D&D struggling to be more than a war game. D&D has called itself a roleplaying game since its inception, but it has never offered good opportunities for establishing character or motivation until this edition. Backgrounds have been essential in moving away from a simplistic hack-and-slash and moving towards a narrative experience. Crucially, backgrounds are how the system brings in personality, traits, bonds, and flaws--which are the sine qua non of character. For decades, the game floundered through the medium of alignment, trying to articulate anything like a character's spirit. Now players have the tools they need not only to fight a grue but also to explain who did the fighting and why words weren't enough.
My guess is because classes almost entirely combat oriented and, as @eapiv mentions, backgrounds are more for roleplay, they're skills from the past you can draw upon that don't really fit within the class. Some complement or even replace class fantasy: anyone with the Outlander background better fits my idea of what a Ranger is more than the class itself. A Rogue without Criminal/Spy, or some other background with intrigue where they can use Thieves' Cant, is probably going to be atypical to what the class fantasy is.
I agree with @eapiv above regarding D&D's lack of tangible roleplay opportunities and motivation, and its present struggle. PHB backgrounds are mostly bad: It's one thing to require the Soldier background to gain access to military bases and speak to subordinates, it's another to need to be a Sage to use a library. Surely Clerics should get the Acolyte's Shelter of the Faithful without requiring a background, or Bards make a living from entertainment without the Entertainer? I suppose it's easy to judge now the dust has settled on alignment taking a backseat for character concepts.
One D&D's move to letting players make their own backgrounds with appropriate feats and starting gear is something I far prefer. I would still like to see setting-appropriate suggestions for sourcebooks and adventures with the flavour text of before. My preference is however skewed by the hope that WotC will add more feats to the game that complement the new background system.
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In 5e, most backgrounds didn't actually have "unique, flavorful features"; they usually had mostly useless abilities that rarely came up in-game. Even the most useful background features such as an Outlander's Wanderer ability only mattered if you entered a forest with a large party without much rations. And even then, it relied heavily on DM involvement.
Feats are not generic; there are so many of them, and each one has such cool and unique abilities that you can play for use and never feel like you are using a similar feat twice. The build-your-own-background system makes who your character was actually relevant to who they are now, and maybe its just me, but I think this system adds far more options for customisation than it removes. Anyways, I guess we can just agree to disagree.
Not necessarily. I can have the Criminal/Spy background and be a spy who worked with an adventuring group to steal from the authorities as my background and then have my campaign be the exact same thing. A better explanation is that your background is just what you did in the past and your class is the special powers/combat archetypes and maneuvers you learned to help do those things or to help you in the future when the campaign starts.
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HERE.As I said, I think players should have access to first level feats - just they should also have access to the flavourful background-specific elements of existing backgrounds. 5e already has pretty awful options for customisation and very little in the way of customising your character beyond your class. Backgrounds having unique, background only features are one of the few places where customisation based around roleplaying actually exist.
Replacing, rather than supplementing, background traits with feats, removes something unique about the game which fills a much-needed niche and adds to the sorely lacking customisation options available to players. There is no sensible reason for them to completely changed backgrounds, when they can, and should, just add a better feat system starting at level 1.
In practice, those elements are almost totally useless, and should either be part of a skill (e.g. the Wanderer feature of the Outlander background should just be part of Survival) or a generic "Contacts: you are assumed to have known people before you became an adventurer, who you will trade favors with. Assume they are Friendly towards you, but you are expected to be equally willing to assist them. Details should be worked out with the DM."
I understand that you think players should have first level feats -- what I don't understand is why you seem to think that the background specific features are worth sacrificing a build-your-own-background for. Almost all of those background specific features are basically useless, and they all rely heavily on DM involvement. I gave you an example of one of the "best" background specific features and how it rarely came up in the game in this post, but most background specific features are even less useful than that.
Take the Acolytes "Shelter of the Faithful"; it effectively says that if someone worships the exact same god as you, then you "command their respect" and can get enough gold pieces from them to survive. The DM went out of his way to add encounters with other groups of people who share your religion... Even then though, your feature will give you practically nothing.
Take the Soldiers "Military Rank": If you meet soldiers who served the exact same "military organization" as you respect you a bit. This is another background specific feature that rarely comes into play. Even if it does come into play, it only lets you exert a little bit of influence and gain access to low level places.
In short, you may want to give everyone first level feats, but the way you are proposing would come at the cost of the build-your-own-background system, since you cant exactly have every player build features to help their character with RP and expect those features to be balanced. So not only would it get rid of this wonderful new customization system, but it would also confuse new players by getting rid of the rubrics that offered to pick the feats for them and make all new players go through the long list of feats and choose to pick the "Skilled" (ASI) feat or a different, potentially better feat, every time they tried to make a level 1 character. At higher levels. that would be fine, but it is much better for new players playing a level 1 character to have a sample background with that sorted out for them if they want.
Anyways, that's not the main problem; the main problem is that this would involve axing the awesome build-your-own background system. Quite frankly, I don't think the limited, not very useful background specific features are worth removing this. The former system offers much, much more customization than the latter. Honestly, maybe I'm crazy to think this, but background specific features were mostly just a waste of space in 5e since they came up so little.
TL;DR: I get where you are coming from, but I disagree.
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HERE.Those elements in the current version are pretty much DM dependent on how well they work, as others have said. If you're a noble, it's up to the DM to decide how easy it is for you to get an audience with a local ruler. Sure, in the text, it says you can have a meeting "when needed" but really, it's easy for the DM to just say, "They're, ummm, washing their hair right now. Come back later."
In 1D&D, you can still do the exact same thing. Create a background and say you're a noble. Then, when the time comes to meet the local ruler, you remind the DM you're a noble, so it should be easier for you to get an audience. In the end, it's still DM dependent. The only change is there's not a specific text entry describing it.
Beyond that, you can argue the 1D&D version offers you more expansive options. In 5e, the text is limiting -- here's the one thing you get from your background. IN 1D&D you can say, well, I'm a noble, so I should be better able to recognize the heraldry of surrounding noble houses. Or I'm a noble, so I should be able to go into another noble's court and fairly quickly suss out who's who. You can try that in the 5e version, but in that case there's the old "things only do what they say they do." 1D&D leaves it more open-ended in role playing situations. The only limitation becomes how good of a case you can make to your DM for getting some kind of help in a situation.
[Re: Background features, since there would be too many quote blocks]
I have never seen D&D players so vehemently advocating for removing features from the game--especially when their only defenses of removing the system boil down to "we should remove this system because some bad DMs do not use it" and "what if we present this issue as a false diachodemy where you have to have either the current system or you have the new system." Surely you can see how both those arguments are a bit on the ridiculous side.
For starters, let's look at who the current background system helps--it helps players who do not write in-depth backstory have an "in" to certain groups which both gives them a mechanical advantage so they are not penalized for not writing a backstory and it helps DMs who might not be the most skilled with applying backstories to their actual games. Removing the system makes life easier for lazy DMs who wanted to ignore a portion of the rules or who construed the background rules aggressively against their players. Removing a system that helps people who deserve help just because bad DMs do not like it is rather silly.
As for the "but the new system is better" argument--yeah, it is better. As I said twice now, there should be feats at level 1. Guess what folks, Wizards could easily say when you choose your background you get "[tool/language/proficiency combinations], 1 background-exclusive trait designed for roleplaying, and 1 feature." That would very clearly be the better system as it provides a massive increase in number of customization options.
Or, you know, we can just let Wizards take customization options off the table for everyone because we had a bad experience with a DM not letting us use our own features. That seems reasonable.
Bringing it back to the thread, having a certain skill you can only have learned through years and years of training--even if it is just RP dependent--still makes sense for your background. That is a skill which takes specialized experiences beyond a feat (something you can get every 4 levels in your class--or whatever the new feat system ends up being), and does a better job at further differentiating your background and where you came from than your current job.