@TrippyHippyEcho are you asking because you are in an organized play and they don't allow house rules and that is why you are asking?
Because I don't see it mentioned anywhere and I would think if that was the actual reason, that it would be mentioned, as it wasn't, I have serious doubts about it. I think this is a player reading the rules and treating them as gospel and I think even if you asked the game designers they would do everything in their power to discourage that sort of approach to the game.
I am saying that there shouldn’t be any onus on a DM to have to make rulings on house rules in this way. If the Backgrounds choices were ample from the core rules there wouldn’t any need for potential conflict or debate.
And this is the problem. As a game designer/developer and publisher you have to make a decision but you have an audience of millions, and every single person has a different but very strong opinion about what should or shouldn't be in the book.
This ranges from people who think there should be no backgrounds at all because backgrounds are stupid, to people who think backgrounds should be fully customizable and there should be no selectable options, just let us do it and of course everything in between.
Your assumption is that there is this simple solution.... Just do what I think...
No offense but you're just one person out of millions. You cannot have an expectation that someone will make D&D just the way YOU like it for you. That is the point of how RPG rules are written, its a starting point for you to create your own house rules on how you play the game at your table.
If you are under the impression that you can buy an RPG like D&D, read the rules and just run them as written... prepare to be disappointed, no one in the history of RPG hobby anywhere on gods green earth has ever come even close to achieving this.
@TrippyHippyEcho are you asking because you are in an organized play and they don't allow house rules and that is why you are asking?
Because I don't see it mentioned anywhere and I would think if that was the actual reason, that it would be mentioned, as it wasn't, I have serious doubts about it. I think this is a player reading the rules and treating them as gospel and I think even if you asked the game designers they would do everything in their power to discourage that sort of approach to the game.
I am saying that there shouldn’t be any onus on a DM to have to make rulings on house rules in this way. If the Backgrounds choices were ample from the core rules there wouldn’t any need for potential conflict or debate.
And this is the problem. As a game designer/developer and publisher you have to make a decision but you have an audience of millions, and every single person has a different but very strong opinion about what should or shouldn't be in the book.
This ranges from people who think there should be no backgrounds at all because backgrounds are stupid, to people who think backgrounds should be fully customizable and there should be no selectable options, just let us do it and of course everything in between.
Your assumption is that there is this simple solution.... Just do what I think...
No offense but you're just one person out of millions. You cannot have an expectation that someone will make D&D just the way YOU like it for you. That is the point of how RPG rules are written, its a starting point for you to create your own house rules on how you play the game at your table.
If you are under the impression that you can buy an RPG like D&D, read the rules and just run them as written... prepare to be disappointed, no one in the history of RPG hobby anywhere on gods green earth has ever come even close to achieving this.
I've already decided on two house rules I intend to run with.
First, Shield Proficiency is granted by taking ANY Armor Proficiency if the character doesn't already have it. That way, character that start the game with Light Armor, but not Shields aren't required to spend two feats in order to acquire what should be basic.
Second, the Rapier qualifies as a Light Weapon for dual wielding if the second weapon is a dagger. Because one of my nerdrage points is game designers making the scimitar a much better fencing weapon than the most iconic one. Pathfinder did that trap too and I hated it there as well.
And this is the problem. As a game designer/developer and publisher you have to make a decision but you have an audience of millions, and every single person has a different but very strong opinion about what should or shouldn't be in the book.
This ranges from people who think there should be no backgrounds at all because backgrounds are stupid, to people who think backgrounds should be fully customizable and there should be no selectable options, just let us do it and of course everything in between.
Your assumption is that there is this simple solution.... Just do what I think...
No offense but you're just one person out of millions. You cannot have an expectation that someone will make D&D just the way YOU like it for you. That is the point of how RPG rules are written, its a starting point for you to create your own house rules on how you play the game at your table.
If you are under the impression that you can buy an RPG like D&D, read the rules and just run them as written... prepare to be disappointed, no one in the history of RPG hobby anywhere on gods green earth has ever come even close to achieving this.
“No offence”. What you are saying is pretty offensive, patronising and dismissive.
Any customer who buys a core rule book in good faith would expect the game to function without recourse to other core rulebooks. Moreover, this WAS the case with the 2014 core rules.
I’m with the original poster on the matter now. The new Background rules are just plain bad as they stand. Groups will house-rule because they are bad.
@TrippyHippyEcho are you asking because you are in an organized play and they don't allow house rules and that is why you are asking?
Because I don't see it mentioned anywhere and I would think if that was the actual reason, that it would be mentioned, as it wasn't, I have serious doubts about it. I think this is a player reading the rules and treating them as gospel and I think even if you asked the game designers they would do everything in their power to discourage that sort of approach to the game.
I am saying that there shouldn’t be any onus on a DM to have to make rulings on house rules in this way. If the Backgrounds choices were ample from the core rules there wouldn’t any need for potential conflict or debate.
And this is the problem. As a game designer/developer and publisher you have to make a decision but you have an audience of millions, and every single person has a different but very strong opinion about what should or shouldn't be in the book.
This ranges from people who think there should be no backgrounds at all because backgrounds are stupid, to people who think backgrounds should be fully customizable and there should be no selectable options, just let us do it and of course everything in between.
Your assumption is that there is this simple solution.... Just do what I think...
No offense but you're just one person out of millions. You cannot have an expectation that someone will make D&D just the way YOU like it for you. That is the point of how RPG rules are written, its a starting point for you to create your own house rules on how you play the game at your table.
If you are under the impression that you can buy an RPG like D&D, read the rules and just run them as written... prepare to be disappointed, no one in the history of RPG hobby anywhere on gods green earth has ever come even close to achieving this.
Again, this is completely untrue as well as everything TrippyHippyEcho characterized it as. The existence of organized play means that the game is meant to be played straight out of the box so that DM’s in New York City, Berlin, Montreal, Sydney and every podunk town on any continent are playing the same game. It is intended by the designers that a DDAL character can be brought seamlessly to any of those tables without having to hash out a bunch of house rules each time. For many, even outside of organized play, the idea is to have as few house rules as possible. The better the system, the fewer house rules are needed. For many, the game system is not a starting point with which the DM and players create some unrecognizable jumble of house rules for the next player that comes to the table to play D&D.
I played Rifts for over a decade. We had more than one 3” binder of double sided printed pages of house rules. It was exhausting to keep track of, explain to new characters, account for each new book that came out, balance our changes/additions effectively and essentially write the game for ourselves. I played 3.5/Pathfinder for an equally extensive period in subsequent years; also a nightmare of house rules by the end of the stint. I have no interest in returning to that. Nor does my DM or anyone who chooses to join our table. The decision to play 5e hinged largely on how much simpler, basic and specifically less Byzantine it is than the systems we played in the past and we’re doing just fine with it essentially out of the box for last four years. When I send out our session zero document to players, I can include the entirety of our house rules on less than one page of the three page long document; just the way I like it and unlike Rifts or 3.5/PF or whatever it is you think this game was designed for and requires to play.
I just did a little testing on the Dnd beyond character creation to see what can be customized. For backgrounds, it appears that there is a "Custom Background" option that will essentially be like plugging in the 2014 background stuff in to a 2024 character.
"Custom Background" lets you pick proficiencies, languages, ability score increases, and traits (bonds, ideals, flaws). Doing this, however, seems to forgo the origin feat aspect as far as I can tell. This seems to be done to replace the background feature of a given 2014 background. For example, the 2014 Acolyte background has the "Shelter of the Faithful" feature (free healing and sanctuary at your god's temples) that is absent from the 2024 Acolyte background.
If you feel that the 2014 background feature is not enough, you should add an origin feat of your choice for your custom background. That being said, I think that this is probably breaking the rules.
I agree that the changes to the background system feel strange. The process of customizing the background feels clunky and leave you at a disadvantage due to the loss of an origin feat. It would feel a lot nicer if you could just plug in any proficiencies, feats, and ability scores that you wanted.
I just did a little testing on the Dnd beyond character creation to see what can be customized. For backgrounds, it appears that there is a "Custom Background" option that will essentially be like plugging in the 2014 background stuff in to a 2024 character.
"Custom Background" lets you pick proficiencies, languages, ability score increases, and traits (bonds, ideals, flaws). Doing this, however, seems to forgo the origin feat aspect as far as I can tell. This seems to be done to replace the background feature of a given 2014 background. For example, the 2014 Acolyte background has the "Shelter of the Faithful" feature (free healing and sanctuary at your god's temples) that is absent from the 2024 Acolyte background.
If you feel that the 2014 background feature is not enough, you should add an origin feat of your choice for your custom background. That being said, I think that this is probably breaking the rules.
I agree that the changes to the background system feel strange. The process of customizing the background feels clunky and leave you at a disadvantage due to the loss of an origin feat. It would feel a lot nicer if you could just plug in any proficiencies, feats, and ability scores that you wanted.
That is merely a carryover from the 2014 background rules. I imagine it is being kept there as a placeholder for when the DMG releases with the 2024 Custom Backgrounds.
I think the UA (1 or 2, I forget) with the default was create your own background and the ones provided were simply samples to show how you could do it was the best option. And I’m disappointed they moved away from it.
They said one of the reasons they moved away from ability score bonuses in race was because some players felt they had to select certain races depending on what class you wanted to play (like taking Wood Elf if you were playing a monk). And Tasha’s helped fix that.
Now we’re back in the same boat where some players will feel like they will have to select a certain background depending on the class they want to play (like taking Sailor if you were playing a monk).
And saying house rule it isn’t helpful as just like you can have designers make the game to suit one player out of millions. You can’t depend on every DM and every table to house rule to fit one player. Every table is different and will allow some or no house rules. Or house rules that don’t effect this issue at all.
And this is the problem. As a game designer/developer and publisher you have to make a decision but you have an audience of millions, and every single person has a different but very strong opinion about what should or shouldn't be in the book.
This ranges from people who think there should be no backgrounds at all because backgrounds are stupid, to people who think backgrounds should be fully customizable and there should be no selectable options, just let us do it and of course everything in between.
Your assumption is that there is this simple solution.... Just do what I think...
No offense but you're just one person out of millions. You cannot have an expectation that someone will make D&D just the way YOU like it for you. That is the point of how RPG rules are written, its a starting point for you to create your own house rules on how you play the game at your table.
If you are under the impression that you can buy an RPG like D&D, read the rules and just run them as written... prepare to be disappointed, no one in the history of RPG hobby anywhere on gods green earth has ever come even close to achieving this.
“No offence”. What you are saying is pretty offensive, patronising and dismissive.
Any customer who buys a core rule book in good faith would expect the game to function without recourse to other core rulebooks. Moreover, this WAS the case with the 2014 core rules.
I’m with the original poster on the matter now. The new Background rules are just plain bad as they stand. Groups will house-rule because they are bad.
I find your remarks confusing, you are offended by my comments and disagree with them and then in the very next sentence confirm everything I said to be true and you quoted that portion of my comments.
So I guess I agree with you. Yes, Wizards of the Coasts tries to make a game that will work out of the box for everyone universally, no, they never succeed at this effort and yes, people always house-rule the things they don't like. It has always worked this way, it will always work this way because there is no other way it can work and there is no way in hell you will ever come to some consensus where everyone agrees on what it "should be". You can trust Wizards of the Coast that if there was a "right way" to do it that everyone could agree on, they would do it exactly that way. That "right way" however, does not exist, it only exists in YOUR opinion.
And no it did not work in 2014 either. People house-ruled the living crap out of 2014 just as they will with 2024.
If you find that objective truth to be offensive, I suppose I apologize on the behalf of Wizards of the Coast? I guess?
I think the UA (1 or 2, I forget) with the default was create your own background and the ones provided were simply samples to show how you could do it was the best option. And I’m disappointed they moved away from it.
They said one of the reasons they moved away from ability score bonuses in race was because some players felt they had to select certain races depending on what class you wanted to play (like taking Wood Elf if you were playing a monk). And Tasha’s helped fix that.
Now we’re back in the same boat where some players will feel like they will have to select a certain background depending on the class they want to play (like taking Sailor if you were playing a monk).
And saying house rule it isn’t helpful as just like you can have designers make the game to suit one player out of millions. You can’t depend on every DM and every table to house rule to fit one player. Every table is different and will allow some or no house rules. Or house rules that don’t effect this issue at all.
The issue here is the release of the DMG. Its certain, just like the previous DMG that customization will be an optional rule. It actually technically still is an optional rule given that until the DMG for 2024 is released, the 2014 is the official DMG for the game, the rules for altering and creating backgrounds can be found on p. 289.
If you read and pay attention to the DMG, there is an optional rule to change every element of the entire game from races, classes, sub-classes, skills, feats etc.. There is nothing that is not an "optional rule" in which the DM can alter it and still be within RAW.
People on this forum are acting like house ruling is some sort of "off-the-rails unintended part of the game"... That is objectively false, the DMG is definitively a part of the rule system and there are specific guidelines on how to change any aspect of the game. House rules ARE RAW and for the exact reasons I stated above. This has always been true and always will be true.
People have this weird affinity for "official rules", but the official rules are "you can and should change anything you don't like"... Its a spelled-out, literal rule of Dungeons and Dragons 5e, even more so than any previous edition that was ever released.
And this is the problem. As a game designer/developer and publisher you have to make a decision but you have an audience of millions, and every single person has a different but very strong opinion about what should or shouldn't be in the book.
This ranges from people who think there should be no backgrounds at all because backgrounds are stupid, to people who think backgrounds should be fully customizable and there should be no selectable options, just let us do it and of course everything in between.
Your assumption is that there is this simple solution.... Just do what I think...
No offense but you're just one person out of millions. You cannot have an expectation that someone will make D&D just the way YOU like it for you. That is the point of how RPG rules are written, its a starting point for you to create your own house rules on how you play the game at your table.
If you are under the impression that you can buy an RPG like D&D, read the rules and just run them as written... prepare to be disappointed, no one in the history of RPG hobby anywhere on gods green earth has ever come even close to achieving this.
“No offence”. What you are saying is pretty offensive, patronising and dismissive.
Any customer who buys a core rule book in good faith would expect the game to function without recourse to other core rulebooks. Moreover, this WAS the case with the 2014 core rules.
I’m with the original poster on the matter now. The new Background rules are just plain bad as they stand. Groups will house-rule because they are bad.
I find your remarks confusing, you are offended by my comments and disagree with them and then in the very next sentence confirm everything I said to be true and you quoted that portion of my comments.
So I guess I agree with you. Yes, Wizards of the Coasts tries to make a game that will work out of the box for everyone universally, no, they never succeed at this effort and yes, people always house-rule the things they don't like. It has always worked this way, it will always work this way because there is no other way it can work and there is no way in hell you will ever come to some consensus where everyone agrees on what it "should be". You can trust Wizards of the Coast that if there was a "right way" to do it that everyone could agree on, they would do it exactly that way. That "right way" however, does not exist, it only exists in YOUR opinion.
And no it did not work in 2014 either. People house-ruled the living crap out of 2014 just as they will with 2024.
If you find that objective truth to be offensive, I suppose I apologize on the behalf of Wizards of the Coast? I guess?
Your opinions aren't 'objective truths'. If somebody thinks the way you are expressing your views is obnoxious, it is usually a good time to reflect.
And this is the problem. As a game designer/developer and publisher you have to make a decision but you have an audience of millions, and every single person has a different but very strong opinion about what should or shouldn't be in the book.
This ranges from people who think there should be no backgrounds at all because backgrounds are stupid, to people who think backgrounds should be fully customizable and there should be no selectable options, just let us do it and of course everything in between.
Your assumption is that there is this simple solution.... Just do what I think...
No offense but you're just one person out of millions. You cannot have an expectation that someone will make D&D just the way YOU like it for you. That is the point of how RPG rules are written, its a starting point for you to create your own house rules on how you play the game at your table.
If you are under the impression that you can buy an RPG like D&D, read the rules and just run them as written... prepare to be disappointed, no one in the history of RPG hobby anywhere on gods green earth has ever come even close to achieving this.
“No offence”. What you are saying is pretty offensive, patronising and dismissive.
Any customer who buys a core rule book in good faith would expect the game to function without recourse to other core rulebooks. Moreover, this WAS the case with the 2014 core rules.
I’m with the original poster on the matter now. The new Background rules are just plain bad as they stand. Groups will house-rule because they are bad.
I find your remarks confusing, you are offended by my comments and disagree with them and then in the very next sentence confirm everything I said to be true and you quoted that portion of my comments.
So I guess I agree with you. Yes, Wizards of the Coasts tries to make a game that will work out of the box for everyone universally, no, they never succeed at this effort and yes, people always house-rule the things they don't like. It has always worked this way, it will always work this way because there is no other way it can work and there is no way in hell you will ever come to some consensus where everyone agrees on what it "should be". You can trust Wizards of the Coast that if there was a "right way" to do it that everyone could agree on, they would do it exactly that way. That "right way" however, does not exist, it only exists in YOUR opinion.
And no it did not work in 2014 either. People house-ruled the living crap out of 2014 just as they will with 2024.
If you find that objective truth to be offensive, I suppose I apologize on the behalf of Wizards of the Coast? I guess?
Your opinions aren't 'objective truths'. If somebody thinks the way you are expressing your views is obnoxious, it is usually a good time to reflect.
You should probably share this theory of yours with others who have a tendency to assert that their own opinions about and around 5E and how it is the best game in the universe are not mere opinions but objective reality or with those who spend half their time on these forums trashing earlier editions of the game or other games as if their opinions in that regard are practically Truth Without Room for Disagreement.
It is however True that many house ruled 5E until it was barely recognizable. I can't count on two hands the campaigns I played in that were 5E games but things were house ruled and heavily so.
It isn't as if there isn't now an entire family of OSR games built on the 5E chassis only incorporating others' house rules to fix what they at least personally felt needed to be fixed. It only takes looking beyond these forums and elsewhere in the hobby space to know that this is true.
And this is the problem. As a game designer/developer and publisher you have to make a decision but you have an audience of millions, and every single person has a different but very strong opinion about what should or shouldn't be in the book.
This ranges from people who think there should be no backgrounds at all because backgrounds are stupid, to people who think backgrounds should be fully customizable and there should be no selectable options, just let us do it and of course everything in between.
Your assumption is that there is this simple solution.... Just do what I think...
No offense but you're just one person out of millions. You cannot have an expectation that someone will make D&D just the way YOU like it for you. That is the point of how RPG rules are written, its a starting point for you to create your own house rules on how you play the game at your table.
If you are under the impression that you can buy an RPG like D&D, read the rules and just run them as written... prepare to be disappointed, no one in the history of RPG hobby anywhere on gods green earth has ever come even close to achieving this.
“No offence”. What you are saying is pretty offensive, patronising and dismissive.
Any customer who buys a core rule book in good faith would expect the game to function without recourse to other core rulebooks. Moreover, this WAS the case with the 2014 core rules.
I’m with the original poster on the matter now. The new Background rules are just plain bad as they stand. Groups will house-rule because they are bad.
I find your remarks confusing, you are offended by my comments and disagree with them and then in the very next sentence confirm everything I said to be true and you quoted that portion of my comments.
So I guess I agree with you. Yes, Wizards of the Coasts tries to make a game that will work out of the box for everyone universally, no, they never succeed at this effort and yes, people always house-rule the things they don't like. It has always worked this way, it will always work this way because there is no other way it can work and there is no way in hell you will ever come to some consensus where everyone agrees on what it "should be". You can trust Wizards of the Coast that if there was a "right way" to do it that everyone could agree on, they would do it exactly that way. That "right way" however, does not exist, it only exists in YOUR opinion.
And no it did not work in 2014 either. People house-ruled the living crap out of 2014 just as they will with 2024.
If you find that objective truth to be offensive, I suppose I apologize on the behalf of Wizards of the Coast? I guess?
Your opinions aren't 'objective truths'. If somebody thinks the way you are expressing your views is obnoxious, it is usually a good time to reflect.
You should probably share this theory of yours with others who have a tendency to assert that their own opinions about and around 5E and how it is the best game in the universe are not mere opinions but objective reality or with those who spend half their time on these forums trashing earlier editions of the game or other games as if their opinions in that regard are practically Truth Without Room for Disagreement.
It is however True that many house ruled 5E until it was barely recognizable. I can't count on two hands the campaigns I played in that were 5E games but things were house ruled and heavily so.
It isn't as if there isn't now an entire family of OSR games built on the 5E chassis only incorporating others' house rules to fix what they at least personally felt needed to be fixed. It only takes looking beyond these forums and elsewhere in the hobby space to know that this is true.
All of this is utterly irrelevant when discussing the effectiveness of particular rules in an official core rule book.
People can choose to House Rule what they want but the core rules themselves should be complete and consistent and effective in and of themselves. The issues raised about the Background rules are legitimate and the whole side show about house ruling is besides the point.
Nice Pantheon. They just didn't spend the time to take these aspects of the gaming experience through to logical conclusions. And like some people have noted here, it's just nice when the rules are lined up, explicit and inputted directly into the tool some players are forced (or choose) to use (online dnd beyond, etc.).
And this is the problem. As a game designer/developer and publisher you have to make a decision but you have an audience of millions, and every single person has a different but very strong opinion about what should or shouldn't be in the book.
This ranges from people who think there should be no backgrounds at all because backgrounds are stupid, to people who think backgrounds should be fully customizable and there should be no selectable options, just let us do it and of course everything in between.
Your assumption is that there is this simple solution.... Just do what I think...
No offense but you're just one person out of millions. You cannot have an expectation that someone will make D&D just the way YOU like it for you. That is the point of how RPG rules are written, its a starting point for you to create your own house rules on how you play the game at your table.
If you are under the impression that you can buy an RPG like D&D, read the rules and just run them as written... prepare to be disappointed, no one in the history of RPG hobby anywhere on gods green earth has ever come even close to achieving this.
I've already decided on two house rules I intend to run with.
First, Shield Proficiency is granted by taking ANY Armor Proficiency if the character doesn't already have it. That way, character that start the game with Light Armor, but not Shields aren't required to spend two feats in order to acquire what should be basic.
Second, the Rapier qualifies as a Light Weapon for dual wielding if the second weapon is a dagger. Because one of my nerdrage points is game designers making the scimitar a much better fencing weapon than the most iconic one. Pathfinder did that trap too and I hated it there as well.
“No offence”. What you are saying is pretty offensive, patronising and dismissive.
Any customer who buys a core rule book in good faith would expect the game to function without recourse to other core rulebooks. Moreover, this WAS the case with the 2014 core rules.
I’m with the original poster on the matter now. The new Background rules are just plain bad as they stand. Groups will house-rule because they are bad.
Again, this is completely untrue as well as everything TrippyHippyEcho characterized it as. The existence of organized play means that the game is meant to be played straight out of the box so that DM’s in New York City, Berlin, Montreal, Sydney and every podunk town on any continent are playing the same game. It is intended by the designers that a DDAL character can be brought seamlessly to any of those tables without having to hash out a bunch of house rules each time. For many, even outside of organized play, the idea is to have as few house rules as possible. The better the system, the fewer house rules are needed. For many, the game system is not a starting point with which the DM and players create some unrecognizable jumble of house rules for the next player that comes to the table to play D&D.
I played Rifts for over a decade. We had more than one 3” binder of double sided printed pages of house rules. It was exhausting to keep track of, explain to new characters, account for each new book that came out, balance our changes/additions effectively and essentially write the game for ourselves. I played 3.5/Pathfinder for an equally extensive period in subsequent years; also a nightmare of house rules by the end of the stint. I have no interest in returning to that. Nor does my DM or anyone who chooses to join our table. The decision to play 5e hinged largely on how much simpler, basic and specifically less Byzantine it is than the systems we played in the past and we’re doing just fine with it essentially out of the box for last four years. When I send out our session zero document to players, I can include the entirety of our house rules on less than one page of the three page long document; just the way I like it and unlike Rifts or 3.5/PF or whatever it is you think this game was designed for and requires to play.
I just did a little testing on the Dnd beyond character creation to see what can be customized. For backgrounds, it appears that there is a "Custom Background" option that will essentially be like plugging in the 2014 background stuff in to a 2024 character.
"Custom Background" lets you pick proficiencies, languages, ability score increases, and traits (bonds, ideals, flaws). Doing this, however, seems to forgo the origin feat aspect as far as I can tell. This seems to be done to replace the background feature of a given 2014 background. For example, the 2014 Acolyte background has the "Shelter of the Faithful" feature (free healing and sanctuary at your god's temples) that is absent from the 2024 Acolyte background.
If you feel that the 2014 background feature is not enough, you should add an origin feat of your choice for your custom background. That being said, I think that this is probably breaking the rules.
I agree that the changes to the background system feel strange. The process of customizing the background feels clunky and leave you at a disadvantage due to the loss of an origin feat. It would feel a lot nicer if you could just plug in any proficiencies, feats, and ability scores that you wanted.
That is merely a carryover from the 2014 background rules. I imagine it is being kept there as a placeholder for when the DMG releases with the 2024 Custom Backgrounds.
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I think the UA (1 or 2, I forget) with the default was create your own background and the ones provided were simply samples to show how you could do it was the best option. And I’m disappointed they moved away from it.
They said one of the reasons they moved away from ability score bonuses in race was because some players felt they had to select certain races depending on what class you wanted to play (like taking Wood Elf if you were playing a monk). And Tasha’s helped fix that.
Now we’re back in the same boat where some players will feel like they will have to select a certain background depending on the class they want to play (like taking Sailor if you were playing a monk).
And saying house rule it isn’t helpful as just like you can have designers make the game to suit one player out of millions. You can’t depend on every DM and every table to house rule to fit one player. Every table is different and will allow some or no house rules. Or house rules that don’t effect this issue at all.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Someone noticed that a rogue with a criminal background has 2 proficiency of thieves' tools which cannot be replaced?
The rules state that when this happens you can pick up a different proficiency instead.
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-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
And on which page of the new PHB is this rule?
I find your remarks confusing, you are offended by my comments and disagree with them and then in the very next sentence confirm everything I said to be true and you quoted that portion of my comments.
So I guess I agree with you. Yes, Wizards of the Coasts tries to make a game that will work out of the box for everyone universally, no, they never succeed at this effort and yes, people always house-rule the things they don't like. It has always worked this way, it will always work this way because there is no other way it can work and there is no way in hell you will ever come to some consensus where everyone agrees on what it "should be". You can trust Wizards of the Coast that if there was a "right way" to do it that everyone could agree on, they would do it exactly that way. That "right way" however, does not exist, it only exists in YOUR opinion.
And no it did not work in 2014 either. People house-ruled the living crap out of 2014 just as they will with 2024.
If you find that objective truth to be offensive, I suppose I apologize on the behalf of Wizards of the Coast? I guess?
The issue here is the release of the DMG. Its certain, just like the previous DMG that customization will be an optional rule. It actually technically still is an optional rule given that until the DMG for 2024 is released, the 2014 is the official DMG for the game, the rules for altering and creating backgrounds can be found on p. 289.
If you read and pay attention to the DMG, there is an optional rule to change every element of the entire game from races, classes, sub-classes, skills, feats etc.. There is nothing that is not an "optional rule" in which the DM can alter it and still be within RAW.
People on this forum are acting like house ruling is some sort of "off-the-rails unintended part of the game"... That is objectively false, the DMG is definitively a part of the rule system and there are specific guidelines on how to change any aspect of the game. House rules ARE RAW and for the exact reasons I stated above. This has always been true and always will be true.
People have this weird affinity for "official rules", but the official rules are "you can and should change anything you don't like"... Its a spelled-out, literal rule of Dungeons and Dragons 5e, even more so than any previous edition that was ever released.
I believe it is in the DMG. So until the 2024 DMG comes out, it is the rule.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
This HAS been confirmed
Your opinions aren't 'objective truths'. If somebody thinks the way you are expressing your views is obnoxious, it is usually a good time to reflect.
You should probably share this theory of yours with others who have a tendency to assert that their own opinions about and around 5E and how it is the best game in the universe are not mere opinions but objective reality or with those who spend half their time on these forums trashing earlier editions of the game or other games as if their opinions in that regard are practically Truth Without Room for Disagreement.
It is however True that many house ruled 5E until it was barely recognizable. I can't count on two hands the campaigns I played in that were 5E games but things were house ruled and heavily so.
It isn't as if there isn't now an entire family of OSR games built on the 5E chassis only incorporating others' house rules to fix what they at least personally felt needed to be fixed. It only takes looking beyond these forums and elsewhere in the hobby space to know that this is true.
All of this is utterly irrelevant when discussing the effectiveness of particular rules in an official core rule book.
People can choose to House Rule what they want but the core rules themselves should be complete and consistent and effective in and of themselves. The issues raised about the Background rules are legitimate and the whole side show about house ruling is besides the point.
Someone posted this homebrew on reddit, basically gives everyone full control over their background. The abilities get selected under the abilities tab instead of the background tab using this one: https://www.dndbeyond.com/backgrounds/407050-custom-2024-background
Nice Pantheon. They just didn't spend the time to take these aspects of the gaming experience through to logical conclusions. And like some people have noted here, it's just nice when the rules are lined up, explicit and inputted directly into the tool some players are forced (or choose) to use (online dnd beyond, etc.).
Too bad you have to have a subscription in order to add that to your collection.