In light of Tashas, the recent UA mentions separating culture ("cultural") from lineage ("racial").
As far as I can tell, culture now means something like following.
Culture • You can swap any proficiencies that come from racial traits ( ≈ nurture, not nature) ( ≈ education system). • Choose one language ( ≈ cultural group) in addition to Common. • Choose one background ( ≈ your role within your culture).
These three things − proficiency swaps, language, and background − currently mean "culture".
Alignment is an "individual" choice, thus neither lineage ... nor culture. Certain organizations can have policies that are explicitly one alignment (like Chaotic individualism versus Lawful collectivism, and Good altruism versus Evil predation). But even members in such an organization can have an individual alignment that conflicts with the organizational alignment.
Even ability scores seem to be a personal choice, but mainly in the sense of a specific character concept that the player has in mind, that might explore or subvert a trope. The player can explain the scores by various narratives. If a character has high constitution and a miner background, the background supplies a plausible explanation.
The UA notes that future design of lineages will lack ability scores, alignment, language, and proficiencies. But ability scores and alignment seem individual, while language and proficiencies seem cultural.
Personally.
I view backgrounds as follows. If each background is a card, then a culture is a deck of cards. Backgrounds can do the heavy lifting for fleshing out a culture. A background can be "generic", such as Sailor for a globalist nautical culture. Or a background can be extremely specific, such as Grey Elf Griffon Breeder, or High Elf Tree Shaper who magically grows tree-houses out of living wood, or Wood Elf Gymnastic Spear Hunter. Or whatever. Like a game of Magic The Gathering, you can invent a new culture by mix-matching a deck of different backgrounds.
When referring to a formerly-racial background, it is probably wiser to refer to a specific community where the background is prominent, rather than every member of the lineage everywhere. For example, a specific dwarf background might be from the dwarven community of a specific mountain where the background is frequent. A wood elf background might refer to a certain nomadic clan whose tradition it is.
Dont forget, a player can customize their own background. Perhaps future options can expand things that a background can do, such as elf weapon proficiencies or a bow hunter. Also each background seems to have one noncombat cool thing, which I call the "background asset". The asset can be almost anything, and the DM can work with the player to figure out something perfect for the background concept.
Organizationally • Picking a language seems part of picking a background. • Picking an alignment seems part of deciding ideal and flaw.
When it comes to "culture", the rule for a language applies. You can create a new background "that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character." Both have jurisdiction. The player must feel the culture is appropriate for the character concept. The DM must feel the culture is appropriate for the setting concept.
LOL! Heh, this thread has no interest in a playstyle war!
The difference between nature (lineage) and nurture (culture) is a blurry one. For example, the capacity of humans to speak a language is genetic − it is something our brains evolved to do well − but which language one happens to speak is cultural and comes from learning. My brother and I come from the same lineage, but my brother spends more time bodybuilding and his higher Strength bonus is cultural, while I spend more time hiking and have a higher Constitution bonus. And so on. For gaming purposes, all approaches are good, as long as they are fun.
This thread is both for DMs who want to explore cultures to map out a world and for players to find the perfect character concept.
Despite nature and nurture blurring, there are D&D gaming features that normally relate moreso to learning than to inborn instinct.
The UA article mentions that "race options" (meaning "lineage" traits for player characters) will "lack" the following: • Alignment • Language • Ability Score Improvement • Proficiencies − "any other trait that is purely cultural" − which I interpret to mainly mean the proficiencies.
Lets explore each of these as a cultural trait. For the sake of a consistent example of mechanics, I will tend to refer to the elf lineage, but the like goes for other lineages as well.
ALIGNMENT
Even before the days of Drizzt as a Good drow elf, there has always been individual characters who had unexpected alignments. Letting the DM choose and the player choose the alignment of a particular character is the actual D&D tradition across editions. The default high elf being Chaotic Good, arguably, derives from reallife late-1960s early-1970s hippies, who are romantically portrayed as Good individuals Chaotically rebelling against oppressive Lawful Evil authorities. It is normal for scifi to portray reallife what-ifs within the setting, and D&D originators decided to do this by giving each "race" their own genetically predetermined culture. In hindsight, there are probably better ways to create a diversity of cultures.
In my view, there can still be Evil cultures in D&D. Consider Lolth. Lolth herself is personally Evil. Moreover, she pioneers an organization whose policies are Evil. The analogy comes from her spider imagery where newly hatched spiders cannibalistically eat each other. Only the strongest survive this violent entrance into life. So, drow elves more abstractly prey on each other, and only the strongest drow survive. Likewise, any drow who does survive is born from within this Evil organization with predatory skills. Each drow learns this Evil alignment as the only way to survive. The drow confuse Good for weakness. The Lolth organization is ancient, and entire drow communities have learned and adapted to this dysfunctional − painful − way of life. Nevertheless, there exists in D&D drow individuals who are a different alignment, even Good, who somehow managed to survive this systemic Lolthian Evil. There are even drow communities here and there who developed organizations with the policies of a different alignment, even Good.
So, if DM wants an Evil culture, think about how such a painful culture is able to dysfunctionally perpetuate into future generations.
LANGUAGE
Obviously a person learns a language, therefore it is cultural. Indeed, in my view, a language (including symbols, jargon, and slang) and a culture are the same thing. In previous editions, each "race" was supposed to automatically speak a certain language. This never made sense to me. Indeed, high elves from different parts of the world could easily speak different languages and be mutually unintelligible to each other. To separate language from "race" only makes sense.
Languages are the essence of each culture. In my view, it is absolutely the DM who decides what languages exist in a setting. The player can choose from the options that the DM presents. If the player has an idea for a different spin on language, such as Horse Whisper or Mathematics, or whatever, this immediately has implications for how the tone of the setting will feel, and the DM needs to decide if such an approach is appropriate to the setting.
In any case, language is obviously cultural. A halfling might grow up (in a criminal family?) knowing the silent Drow Sign language (a Lolth tradition?). A wood elf might grow up in a predominantly human city, only speaking the local languages.
ABILITY SCORE IMPROVEMENT
The ability score improvement seems the most controversial. Many players (not just traditionalists) view the scores as the most salient way to diversify the lineages from each other. The rationale goes, these other lineages arent human, and the concept that one lineage is smarter than an other one or stronger, IS inborn and genetic (or engineered).
For the sake of disclosure, I view the score modifications as useful for world building. The fact that wood elves make better Rangers and dragonborn make better Paladins, is a feature, not a bug. I can conveniently imagine an entire wood elf culture as nomadic hunter-gatherer clans with a Ranger-esque culture, and enjoy the dragonborn culture as a subversion of the knight-versus-dragon fairytale whose culture is both the knight and the dragon. This is awesome in my eyes.
But for me, I am fully committed to the new way of designing lineages that omits any ability score improvements. The reason is D&D is too often (heh) WRONG about assigning which ability to which race. For example, it drives me insane that the elf can only be Dexterity. Yet the half-elf is Charisma? Yet the elf is supposed to have a Bard-esque culture of songsters and magic? I have been complaining about the incoherence of elven Dexterity for over a decade now! I loved the 4e Charisma-Intelligence eladrin elf. I feel its 5e absence to be painful.
So now, WotC tells me, my elves can have Charisma instead of Dexterity. Officially. Yes, please!
I like separating out the ability score improvements from race. It isnt because I dont think different species cant have different ability improvements. It is because I want more control over which ability improvements will be prominent − both as the DM who does world building and for the player who does character concept building.
I like my wood elves as Shakespeare-fairy-esque Ranger-esque Dexterity-Wisdom nature-loving houseless nomads. I like my high elf as tree-town dwellers whose militaristic traditions perpetuate two different gishy armed forces, a division of Eldritch Knights and a division of Spellsingers. But I also like the Norse-esque sky-dwelling solar elf, with a culture of magic and Charisma − Bard and Paladin − and now I can officially have this too.
I am content to assign different cultures to the same elf subrace. Separating the ability scores allows me to enjoy D&D much more!
So that enthusiasm for separating ability score improvements is my point of view. I am happy to think in terms of diverse cultures, rather than in terms of diverse "races". And because magic, even the most extreme physiological traits such as darkvision can be cultural by undergoing a magical ritual, or by using transmutation-school magic to genetically engineer babies. In a world of magic, culture becomes biology.
It is ok if other players have different point of views about ability score improvements.
PROFICIENCIES
Proficiencies. Tashas permits players to swap in different proficiencies for any "racial" proficiency. This includes proficiencies with skill, tool, weapon and armor.
Technically, language too is a swappable proficiency, but I consider language to be its own thing, and prefer to treat it in its own separate design space.
(I wish there was such thing "cantrip proficiency", similar to a weapon or tool proficiency. Balancewise, it seems ok to swap a weapon for a damage-dealing cantrip, and to swap a tool for a utility cantrip.)
The Elven Weapon Training "trait" is all kinds of awkward. Why would a ranged spellcasting Wizard NEED to learn melee swordfighting? Why does a supposedly Dexterity race prefer a Strength longsword? The drow are "Elven" too but have different elven weapons. The weapons for the wood elf are wrong. Heh, they are supposed to have proficiency with spears, and pit-and-snare traps! Besides where would my Stone-Age nomadic hunter-gatherer wood elf clans specialize in the technologically advanced metallurgy that makes swords?
I am all too happy to jettison the Elven Weapon Training out of the "race" design space. I will never regret that decision!
... BACKGROUNDS
So. If the lineage is no longer the silo to hand out proficiencies, it seems like backgrounds are the silo for them. This is beautiful to me!
The background is the go-to design space to build an elven culture. For example, a "Magical Academic" that is celebrated by many high elf communities can hand out the Arcana skill and possibly Investigation (for librarian research skills) and History (for long memory, cultural overview analysis, etcetera). For a magical background, such as "Glamorous", the noncombat one cool thing − the background asset − can be a MAGICAL capability, like the ability to cast an illusion of luxury or even a noncombat feature to enchant someone with elven beauty.
The high elf culture is a deck of different backgrounds: Magical Academic, Glamorous, Eldritch Sword-Dancer Fighting Stylist, Arcane Artillerist, Tree-Shaper, Berry Wine Brewer, Fey Courtier, Fate Oracle, etcetera, etcetera.
It makes so much more sense to use the background design space to construct an elven culture, rather than straightjacket every single elf into one or two incongruent traits that fail to synergize with the other elf lineage traits.
In all, background is the best design space for proficiency and culture.
This thread feels like we're monologuing, so I'll be brief: this either pigeonholes races into really small decks of cards or blows up the number of backgrounds massively. With just half a dozen backgrounds per race we're looking at 45 of them for the PHB alone. For comparison: the PHB currently has 13. In order to reduce the number of background options for each race by half, WotC would have to create three times as many. In order to give every race as many background options as there are in the PHB alone, they'd have the create over 500 backgrounds; in order to give them as many as there currently are across all sources they'd need over 1500. Diversity and creativity are great things, but practicality tends to win out.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
This either pigeonholes races into really small decks of cards or blows up the number of backgrounds massively. With just half a dozen backgrounds per race we're looking at 45 of them for the PHB alone. For comparison: the PHB currently has 13. In order to reduce the number of background options for each race by half, WotC would have to create three times as many. In order to give every race as many background options as there are in the PHB alone, they'd have the create over 500 backgrounds; in order to give them as many as there currently are across all sources they'd need over 1500. Diversity and creativity are great things, but practicality tends to win out.
The fact that backgrounds can number anywhere from 13 to 1500 is excellent. There is as much design space as there needs to be to build a particular culture.
Designing backgrounds is more like designing spells or magic items − there can be as many as there needs to be.
A culture is part of a regional setting. A specific culture can mix both generic backgrounds and unique backgrounds.
Personally, when thinking about a particular culture, I would focus on five primary backgrounds that are the most salient for a specific culture, plus maybe upto seven secondary backgrounds to help round out the concept.
The fact that backgrounds can number anywhere from 13 to 1500 is excellent. There is as much design space as there needs to be to build a particular culture.
With DM fiat/homebrew, it can vary between none and infinity. If restricted to official publications, it can vary between none and "this iswhat we can afford to develop and print".
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I havent used avariel in my settings, but these winged elves have a culture in Forgotten Realms. One of the five most salient backgrounds for the avariel culture might be the "Glassteel Artisan". The glassteel is a glass-transparent steel-strong substance, useful for anything from armor to windows. The avariel are famous for their glassteel production. Perhaps the background grants tools for Glassblower, Smith, and Alchemist. The asset might be the creation of a light-armor glassteel breastplate (AC 13 full Dexterity) out of the proper special ingredients, that wont interfere with winged flight. An other salient background might be "Aquiline Soarer" with Acrobatics for aerial maneuvers and Perception for eagle eyes, Navigator tools for migrations and flight, an asset relating to long distance vision, maybe even the ability to communicate with eagles. An other background is High Altitude Tea Brewer (apparently inspired by reallife chewing cocaine leaves?) whose tea is an intoxicating stimulant that mitigates altitude sickness, with Brewer and Healer tools and Nature and Medicine skills. An other background might be "Aerie Nester" that specializes in building high mountain perch homes. And so on to create five salient backgrounds for the culture of the avariel of a particular mountain range. It is easy to have a handful of backgrounds to sketch out a fun culture.
I don't see a good system for implementing culture without a complete teardown/redesign of backgrounds. They share the same conceptual space and you can't just tack on culture to what we have now. I'm not one of those 6e doomsayers but this feels like more of a playtest of a future edition than a viable revamp to 5e.
I don't see a good system for implementing culture without a complete teardown/redesign of backgrounds. They share the same conceptual space and you can't just tack on culture to what we have now. I'm not one of those 6e doomsayers but this feels like more of a playtest of a future edition than a viable revamp to 5e.
Explain to me the difficulty?
You can create your own background. • Typically about three proficiencies, such as two skills and one or two tools • One asset (a special noncombat feature)
But there is much flexibility, and the player and the DM can work together to innovate a new background that matches both the character concept and the regional setting, while maintaining gaming balance.
Obviously, a DM can create two or three special backgrounds for a distinctive culture.
Despite the background normally being for noncombat, I have no problem giving proficiency with longbow for a Deer Hunter background, or proficiency with a longsword for a Sword-Dancer elven fighting style along with acrobatics and athletics, and the ability to use Dexterity for both the longsword and the athletics. Or a grugach elf, the special asset might make pits and snares for a Trapper background, with proficiency with spear and net, and with Stealth. Also for a grugach, there can be an Animal Spiritist with Animal Handling, Survival, and the ability to communicate with forest mammals (as if with Animal Friendship) plus Tree Walk full climb speed thru living tree branches. In other backgrounds, it is also ok to grant a utility cantrip as the special asset, such as Thaumaturgy for a magical stage actor. Whatever makes sense.
Meanwhile, the DM can also include some generic backgrounds from the Players Handbook.
A DM can make up a background on the fly, and add it to Word doc (or a three-ring notebook) to keep track of a particular culture, similar to keeping track of NPCs.
I don't see a good system for implementing culture without a complete teardown/redesign of backgrounds. They share the same conceptual space and you can't just tack on culture to what we have now. I'm not one of those 6e doomsayers but this feels like more of a playtest of a future edition than a viable revamp to 5e.
Explain to me the difficulty?
You can create your own background. • Typically about three proficiencies, such as two skills and one or two tools • One asset (a special noncombat feature)
But there is much flexibility, and the player and the DM can work together to innovate a new background that matches both the character concept and the regional setting, while maintaining gaming balance.
Obviously, a DM can create two or three special backgrounds for a distinctive culture.
Despite the background normally being for noncombat, I have no problem giving proficiency with longbow for a Deer Hunter background, or proficiency with a longsword for a Sword-Dancer elven fighting style along with acrobatics and athletics, and the ability to use Dexterity for both the longsword and the athletics. Or a grugach elf, the special asset might make pits and snares for a Trapper background, with proficiency with spear and net, and with Stealth. It is also ok to grant a utility cantrip as the special asset, such as Thaumaturgy for a magical stage actor. Whatever makes sense.
Meanwhile, the DM can also include some generic backgrounds from the Players Handbook.
You're describing backgrounds as they were found in the PHB on release to a T. No need for Xanathar's, Tasha's, a perceived design direction change or anything else. This is literally PHB backgrounds 101.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
By the way, the DnDBeyond homebrew feature to create a background is excellent!
I have used it to create a special background for my Norse-esque regional setting, with a list of psionic spells known that become accessible with this background.
DnDBeyond is a great resource to keep track of special backgrounds.
I don't see a good system for implementing culture without a complete teardown/redesign of backgrounds. They share the same conceptual space and you can't just tack on culture to what we have now. I'm not one of those 6e doomsayers but this feels like more of a playtest of a future edition than a viable revamp to 5e.
Explain to me the difficulty?
You can create your own background. • Typically about three proficiencies, such as two skills and one or two tools • One asset (a special noncombat feature)
But there is much flexibility, and the player and the DM can work together to innovate a new background that matches both the character concept and the regional setting, while maintaining gaming balance.
Obviously, a DM can create two or three special backgrounds for a distinctive culture.
Despite the background normally being for noncombat, I have no problem giving proficiency with longbow for a Deer Hunter background, or proficiency with a longsword for a Sword-Dancer elven fighting style along with acrobatics and athletics, and the ability to use Dexterity for both the longsword and the athletics. Or a grugach elf, the special asset might make pits and snares for a Trapper background, with proficiency with spear and net, and with Stealth. It is also ok to grant a utility cantrip as the special asset, such as Thaumaturgy for a magical stage actor. Whatever makes sense.
Meanwhile, the DM can also include some generic backgrounds from the Players Handbook.
You're describing backgrounds as they were found in the PHB on release to a T. No need for Xanathar's, Tasha's, a perceived design direction change or anything else. This is literally PHB backgrounds 101.
Yeah, exactly. Creating backgrounds is already a normal part of D&D 5e.
Using backgrounds to build "cultures" is no big deal.
For the sake of completion, here are the generic backgrounds that the Players Handbook lists.
• Acolyte (note it can be a religious or a cosmic-force philosophical leader) • Charlatan • Criminal (thief or spy) • Entertainer (worth tweaking for a specific kind of entertainer, whether musician, juggler, or whatever) • Folk Hero • Guild Artisan (artisan or even politician) • Hermit (recluse, mad scientist, or monastic) • Noble • Outlander (various wilderness lifestyles, probably swap out the musical instrument for a more appropriate tool) • Sage • Sailor • Soldier • Urchin
These generic backgrounds work great for many medieval human cultures. And feel free to swap one proficiency for an other that feels better for the character concept.
The only generic background that seems to be missing is
• Farmer
Maybe we can come up with a good Farmer background here in this thread?
My only quibble with these generic backgrounds is they are mainly for a nonmagical culture, and work less well for a magical culture. Consider a Eberron-esque background that specializes in some industrial magic, or a fey background that specializes in magical entertainment, or so on. For a magical culture, designing a new background with a magical asset is no problem.
There's a ton of useful and potentially viable stuff in here for the designers to pick through should they wish. The Cultural stuff, I think (like stonecraft and such) could be tied to where in the world the character is from. All the races have spread around, there's Dwarves in the deserts, Elves in tunnels underground alongside Humans Orcs and even a few Kenku. Anyone who was born in these regions would be at least proficient in, say Stonecraft, if they were from a mountain/rocky/cave type region. You just pick stuff up, living amongst it your whole life. Backgrounds would be after you "grew up" some, so the Halfling who was born in the desert, wanted a major change in life and took to the sea. I think linking a lot of what we saw as "racial perks" could easily make sense in a cultural/regional normalism. (I made up a word, I know)
It would put those options back into the game, which would be nice, but open them to whatever "skin" your character wants to wear. Wizard with Longsword proficiency? Sure, the region he grew up in had, as part of it's regular education system, Longsword training for all citizens. It helped make for a stronger militia when called on. Anything is possible, which is kind of nifty. making for regional differences, and allowing that this fantasy world is much like our own, with all the races now scrambled all over the planet, any species on the list could, theoretically, have bee born and raised anywhere on the map.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Yeah, exactly. Creating backgrounds is already a normal part of D&D 5e.
Using backgrounds to build "cultures" is no big deal.
I think we're buying in to different assumptions here. I'll explain mine:
Current races are a mix of lineage and culture. Some of the racial benefits are from your lineage and some are from your culture. Then you get additional benefits from your background. So effectively you have three bundles of mechanics that determine your origin: lineage, culture, and background.
If races moving forward are only covering lineage, with the current model you only get two bundles of mechanics: lineage and background. So either the size and shape of those bundles needs to change, or we need to get a third bundle from somewhere else.
Yeah, exactly. Creating backgrounds is already a normal part of D&D 5e.
Using backgrounds to build "cultures" is no big deal.
I think we're buying in to different assumptions here. I'll explain mine:
Current races are a mix of lineage and culture. Some of the racial benefits are from your lineage and some are from your culture. Then you get additional benefits from your background. So effectively you have three bundles of mechanics that determine your origin: lineage, culture, and background.
If races moving forward are only covering lineage, with the current model you only get two bundles of mechanics: lineage and background. So either the size and shape of those bundles needs to change, or we need to get a third bundle from somewhere else.
So, according to your point of view, there will be a loss of information. Missing is "race (culture)".
However. The emerging standard format for a race lacks a cultural trait anyway.
The way I look at it, I see calibration. I see no loss.
The races in the Players Handbook are unequal in power. In my eyes, the most powerful is Half-Elf, and the least powerful is Halfling. So, the Players Handbook lacks a standard format for a unit of measure to build an official race.
Now, Tashas presents the Custom Lineage, and this functions now serves as a standard format for the amount of power of an official race. This new format corresponds to the Variant Human in the Players Handbook − which character optimizers considers a potent choice of race.
CUSTOM LINEAGE
VARIANT HUMAN
(Tashas Cauldron)
(Players Handbook)
ALIGNMENT
Any Alignment
Any Alignment
LANGUAGE
Common plus Choice
Common plus Choice
ABILITY SCORES
+2 Any
+1 Any and +1 Any Other
CREATURE TYPE
Humanoid (Any)
Humanoid (Human)
SIZE
Medium or Small
Medium
SPEED
30 feet
30 feet
SKILL
Skill or Darkvision
Skill
FEAT
Feat
Feat
So, as one can see, the Custom Lineage and the Variant Human are the same unit of measurement.
I consider this the standard format. It is the measure of all lineages, whether some are overpowered or underpowered compared to it.
In light of the recent UA moving forward, we have something like:
Individual • Ability Scores • Alignment
Lineage • Size, Speed • Darkvision or Skill • Feat
Culture • Language • Background
So, there is no loss of information compared to the official format. What might be darkvision, might instead be a choice of skill. While a skill proficiency is normally understood as a cultural feature, perhaps here in the lineage it can be explained as an inborn capacity to learn. It is a choice of any skill. In any case, there is no loss of power for this standard unit of measurement for any official lineage.
Beyond the individual alignment and ability scores, and the lineage traits, the player also chooses a culture via a language and a background.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
he / him
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
In light of Tashas, the recent UA mentions separating culture ("cultural") from lineage ("racial").
As far as I can tell, culture now means something like following.
Culture
• You can swap any proficiencies that come from racial traits ( ≈ nurture, not nature) ( ≈ education system).
• Choose one language ( ≈ cultural group) in addition to Common.
• Choose one background ( ≈ your role within your culture).
These three things − proficiency swaps, language, and background − currently mean "culture".
Alignment is an "individual" choice, thus neither lineage ... nor culture. Certain organizations can have policies that are explicitly one alignment (like Chaotic individualism versus Lawful collectivism, and Good altruism versus Evil predation). But even members in such an organization can have an individual alignment that conflicts with the organizational alignment.
Even ability scores seem to be a personal choice, but mainly in the sense of a specific character concept that the player has in mind, that might explore or subvert a trope. The player can explain the scores by various narratives. If a character has high constitution and a miner background, the background supplies a plausible explanation.
The UA notes that future design of lineages will lack ability scores, alignment, language, and proficiencies. But ability scores and alignment seem individual, while language and proficiencies seem cultural.
Personally.
I view backgrounds as follows. If each background is a card, then a culture is a deck of cards. Backgrounds can do the heavy lifting for fleshing out a culture. A background can be "generic", such as Sailor for a globalist nautical culture. Or a background can be extremely specific, such as Grey Elf Griffon Breeder, or High Elf Tree Shaper who magically grows tree-houses out of living wood, or Wood Elf Gymnastic Spear Hunter. Or whatever. Like a game of Magic The Gathering, you can invent a new culture by mix-matching a deck of different backgrounds.
When referring to a formerly-racial background, it is probably wiser to refer to a specific community where the background is prominent, rather than every member of the lineage everywhere. For example, a specific dwarf background might be from the dwarven community of a specific mountain where the background is frequent. A wood elf background might refer to a certain nomadic clan whose tradition it is.
Dont forget, a player can customize their own background. Perhaps future options can expand things that a background can do, such as elf weapon proficiencies or a bow hunter. Also each background seems to have one noncombat cool thing, which I call the "background asset". The asset can be almost anything, and the DM can work with the player to figure out something perfect for the background concept.
Organizationally
• Picking a language seems part of picking a background.
• Picking an alignment seems part of deciding ideal and flaw.
he / him
When it comes to "culture", the rule for a language applies. You can create a new background "that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character." Both have jurisdiction. The player must feel the culture is appropriate for the character concept. The DM must feel the culture is appropriate for the setting concept.
he / him
ikd can we stop with the theory crafting on the new UA....
these convos always go astray
We can always place bets on how many pages will the next thread survive.
LOL! Heh, this thread has no interest in a playstyle war!
The difference between nature (lineage) and nurture (culture) is a blurry one. For example, the capacity of humans to speak a language is genetic − it is something our brains evolved to do well − but which language one happens to speak is cultural and comes from learning. My brother and I come from the same lineage, but my brother spends more time bodybuilding and his higher Strength bonus is cultural, while I spend more time hiking and have a higher Constitution bonus. And so on. For gaming purposes, all approaches are good, as long as they are fun.
This thread is both for DMs who want to explore cultures to map out a world and for players to find the perfect character concept.
he / him
Despite nature and nurture blurring, there are D&D gaming features that normally relate moreso to learning than to inborn instinct.
The UA article mentions that "race options" (meaning "lineage" traits for player characters) will "lack" the following:
• Alignment
• Language
• Ability Score Improvement
• Proficiencies − "any other trait that is purely cultural" − which I interpret to mainly mean the proficiencies.
Lets explore each of these as a cultural trait. For the sake of a consistent example of mechanics, I will tend to refer to the elf lineage, but the like goes for other lineages as well.
ALIGNMENT
Even before the days of Drizzt as a Good drow elf, there has always been individual characters who had unexpected alignments. Letting the DM choose and the player choose the alignment of a particular character is the actual D&D tradition across editions. The default high elf being Chaotic Good, arguably, derives from reallife late-1960s early-1970s hippies, who are romantically portrayed as Good individuals Chaotically rebelling against oppressive Lawful Evil authorities. It is normal for scifi to portray reallife what-ifs within the setting, and D&D originators decided to do this by giving each "race" their own genetically predetermined culture. In hindsight, there are probably better ways to create a diversity of cultures.
In my view, there can still be Evil cultures in D&D. Consider Lolth. Lolth herself is personally Evil. Moreover, she pioneers an organization whose policies are Evil. The analogy comes from her spider imagery where newly hatched spiders cannibalistically eat each other. Only the strongest survive this violent entrance into life. So, drow elves more abstractly prey on each other, and only the strongest drow survive. Likewise, any drow who does survive is born from within this Evil organization with predatory skills. Each drow learns this Evil alignment as the only way to survive. The drow confuse Good for weakness. The Lolth organization is ancient, and entire drow communities have learned and adapted to this dysfunctional − painful − way of life. Nevertheless, there exists in D&D drow individuals who are a different alignment, even Good, who somehow managed to survive this systemic Lolthian Evil. There are even drow communities here and there who developed organizations with the policies of a different alignment, even Good.
So, if DM wants an Evil culture, think about how such a painful culture is able to dysfunctionally perpetuate into future generations.
LANGUAGE
Obviously a person learns a language, therefore it is cultural. Indeed, in my view, a language (including symbols, jargon, and slang) and a culture are the same thing. In previous editions, each "race" was supposed to automatically speak a certain language. This never made sense to me. Indeed, high elves from different parts of the world could easily speak different languages and be mutually unintelligible to each other. To separate language from "race" only makes sense.
Languages are the essence of each culture. In my view, it is absolutely the DM who decides what languages exist in a setting. The player can choose from the options that the DM presents. If the player has an idea for a different spin on language, such as Horse Whisper or Mathematics, or whatever, this immediately has implications for how the tone of the setting will feel, and the DM needs to decide if such an approach is appropriate to the setting.
In any case, language is obviously cultural. A halfling might grow up (in a criminal family?) knowing the silent Drow Sign language (a Lolth tradition?). A wood elf might grow up in a predominantly human city, only speaking the local languages.
ABILITY SCORE IMPROVEMENT
The ability score improvement seems the most controversial. Many players (not just traditionalists) view the scores as the most salient way to diversify the lineages from each other. The rationale goes, these other lineages arent human, and the concept that one lineage is smarter than an other one or stronger, IS inborn and genetic (or engineered).
For the sake of disclosure, I view the score modifications as useful for world building. The fact that wood elves make better Rangers and dragonborn make better Paladins, is a feature, not a bug. I can conveniently imagine an entire wood elf culture as nomadic hunter-gatherer clans with a Ranger-esque culture, and enjoy the dragonborn culture as a subversion of the knight-versus-dragon fairytale whose culture is both the knight and the dragon. This is awesome in my eyes.
But for me, I am fully committed to the new way of designing lineages that omits any ability score improvements. The reason is D&D is too often (heh) WRONG about assigning which ability to which race. For example, it drives me insane that the elf can only be Dexterity. Yet the half-elf is Charisma? Yet the elf is supposed to have a Bard-esque culture of songsters and magic? I have been complaining about the incoherence of elven Dexterity for over a decade now! I loved the 4e Charisma-Intelligence eladrin elf. I feel its 5e absence to be painful.
So now, WotC tells me, my elves can have Charisma instead of Dexterity. Officially. Yes, please!
I like separating out the ability score improvements from race. It isnt because I dont think different species cant have different ability improvements. It is because I want more control over which ability improvements will be prominent − both as the DM who does world building and for the player who does character concept building.
I like my wood elves as Shakespeare-fairy-esque Ranger-esque Dexterity-Wisdom nature-loving houseless nomads. I like my high elf as tree-town dwellers whose militaristic traditions perpetuate two different gishy armed forces, a division of Eldritch Knights and a division of Spellsingers. But I also like the Norse-esque sky-dwelling solar elf, with a culture of magic and Charisma − Bard and Paladin − and now I can officially have this too.
I am content to assign different cultures to the same elf subrace. Separating the ability scores allows me to enjoy D&D much more!
So that enthusiasm for separating ability score improvements is my point of view. I am happy to think in terms of diverse cultures, rather than in terms of diverse "races". And because magic, even the most extreme physiological traits such as darkvision can be cultural by undergoing a magical ritual, or by using transmutation-school magic to genetically engineer babies. In a world of magic, culture becomes biology.
It is ok if other players have different point of views about ability score improvements.
PROFICIENCIES
Proficiencies. Tashas permits players to swap in different proficiencies for any "racial" proficiency. This includes proficiencies with skill, tool, weapon and armor.
Technically, language too is a swappable proficiency, but I consider language to be its own thing, and prefer to treat it in its own separate design space.
(I wish there was such thing "cantrip proficiency", similar to a weapon or tool proficiency. Balancewise, it seems ok to swap a weapon for a damage-dealing cantrip, and to swap a tool for a utility cantrip.)
The Elven Weapon Training "trait" is all kinds of awkward. Why would a ranged spellcasting Wizard NEED to learn melee swordfighting? Why does a supposedly Dexterity race prefer a Strength longsword? The drow are "Elven" too but have different elven weapons. The weapons for the wood elf are wrong. Heh, they are supposed to have proficiency with spears, and pit-and-snare traps! Besides where would my Stone-Age nomadic hunter-gatherer wood elf clans specialize in the technologically advanced metallurgy that makes swords?
I am all too happy to jettison the Elven Weapon Training out of the "race" design space. I will never regret that decision!
... BACKGROUNDS
So. If the lineage is no longer the silo to hand out proficiencies, it seems like backgrounds are the silo for them. This is beautiful to me!
The background is the go-to design space to build an elven culture. For example, a "Magical Academic" that is celebrated by many high elf communities can hand out the Arcana skill and possibly Investigation (for librarian research skills) and History (for long memory, cultural overview analysis, etcetera). For a magical background, such as "Glamorous", the noncombat one cool thing − the background asset − can be a MAGICAL capability, like the ability to cast an illusion of luxury or even a noncombat feature to enchant someone with elven beauty.
The high elf culture is a deck of different backgrounds: Magical Academic, Glamorous, Eldritch Sword-Dancer Fighting Stylist, Arcane Artillerist, Tree-Shaper, Berry Wine Brewer, Fey Courtier, Fate Oracle, etcetera, etcetera.
It makes so much more sense to use the background design space to construct an elven culture, rather than straightjacket every single elf into one or two incongruent traits that fail to synergize with the other elf lineage traits.
In all, background is the best design space for proficiency and culture.
he / him
This thread feels like we're monologuing, so I'll be brief: this either pigeonholes races into really small decks of cards or blows up the number of backgrounds massively. With just half a dozen backgrounds per race we're looking at 45 of them for the PHB alone. For comparison: the PHB currently has 13. In order to reduce the number of background options for each race by half, WotC would have to create three times as many. In order to give every race as many background options as there are in the PHB alone, they'd have the create over 500 backgrounds; in order to give them as many as there currently are across all sources they'd need over 1500. Diversity and creativity are great things, but practicality tends to win out.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
The fact that backgrounds can number anywhere from 13 to 1500 is excellent. There is as much design space as there needs to be to build a particular culture.
Designing backgrounds is more like designing spells or magic items − there can be as many as there needs to be.
A culture is part of a regional setting. A specific culture can mix both generic backgrounds and unique backgrounds.
Personally, when thinking about a particular culture, I would focus on five primary backgrounds that are the most salient for a specific culture, plus maybe upto seven secondary backgrounds to help round out the concept.
he / him
With DM fiat/homebrew, it can vary between none and infinity. If restricted to official publications, it can vary between none and "this iswhat we can afford to develop and print".
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Note, the Players Handbook itself (p127) says:
"If you cant find a feature that matches your desired background, work with your DM to create one."
Both the player and the DM are encouraged to create a new interesting background asset.
Inventing new backgrounds is already a normal part of the D&D 5e experience.
The fact that backgrounds are a powerful mechanic to construct cultures, is a happy synchronicity.
he / him
I havent used avariel in my settings, but these winged elves have a culture in Forgotten Realms. One of the five most salient backgrounds for the avariel culture might be the "Glassteel Artisan". The glassteel is a glass-transparent steel-strong substance, useful for anything from armor to windows. The avariel are famous for their glassteel production. Perhaps the background grants tools for Glassblower, Smith, and Alchemist. The asset might be the creation of a light-armor glassteel breastplate (AC 13 full Dexterity) out of the proper special ingredients, that wont interfere with winged flight. An other salient background might be "Aquiline Soarer" with Acrobatics for aerial maneuvers and Perception for eagle eyes, Navigator tools for migrations and flight, an asset relating to long distance vision, maybe even the ability to communicate with eagles. An other background is High Altitude Tea Brewer (apparently inspired by reallife chewing cocaine leaves?) whose tea is an intoxicating stimulant that mitigates altitude sickness, with Brewer and Healer tools and Nature and Medicine skills. An other background might be "Aerie Nester" that specializes in building high mountain perch homes. And so on to create five salient backgrounds for the culture of the avariel of a particular mountain range. It is easy to have a handful of backgrounds to sketch out a fun culture.
he / him
I don't see a good system for implementing culture without a complete teardown/redesign of backgrounds. They share the same conceptual space and you can't just tack on culture to what we have now. I'm not one of those 6e doomsayers but this feels like more of a playtest of a future edition than a viable revamp to 5e.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Explain to me the difficulty?
You can create your own background.
• Typically about three proficiencies, such as two skills and one or two tools
• One asset (a special noncombat feature)
But there is much flexibility, and the player and the DM can work together to innovate a new background that matches both the character concept and the regional setting, while maintaining gaming balance.
Obviously, a DM can create two or three special backgrounds for a distinctive culture.
Despite the background normally being for noncombat, I have no problem giving proficiency with longbow for a Deer Hunter background, or proficiency with a longsword for a Sword-Dancer elven fighting style along with acrobatics and athletics, and the ability to use Dexterity for both the longsword and the athletics. Or a grugach elf, the special asset might make pits and snares for a Trapper background, with proficiency with spear and net, and with Stealth. Also for a grugach, there can be an Animal Spiritist with Animal Handling, Survival, and the ability to communicate with forest mammals (as if with Animal Friendship) plus Tree Walk full climb speed thru living tree branches. In other backgrounds, it is also ok to grant a utility cantrip as the special asset, such as Thaumaturgy for a magical stage actor. Whatever makes sense.
Meanwhile, the DM can also include some generic backgrounds from the Players Handbook.
A DM can make up a background on the fly, and add it to Word doc (or a three-ring notebook) to keep track of a particular culture, similar to keeping track of NPCs.
he / him
You're describing backgrounds as they were found in the PHB on release to a T. No need for Xanathar's, Tasha's, a perceived design direction change or anything else. This is literally PHB backgrounds 101.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
By the way, the DnDBeyond homebrew feature to create a background is excellent!
I have used it to create a special background for my Norse-esque regional setting, with a list of psionic spells known that become accessible with this background.
DnDBeyond is a great resource to keep track of special backgrounds.
he / him
Yeah, exactly. Creating backgrounds is already a normal part of D&D 5e.
Using backgrounds to build "cultures" is no big deal.
he / him
For the sake of completion, here are the generic backgrounds that the Players Handbook lists.
• Acolyte (note it can be a religious or a cosmic-force philosophical leader)
• Charlatan
• Criminal (thief or spy)
• Entertainer (worth tweaking for a specific kind of entertainer, whether musician, juggler, or whatever)
• Folk Hero
• Guild Artisan (artisan or even politician)
• Hermit (recluse, mad scientist, or monastic)
• Noble
• Outlander (various wilderness lifestyles, probably swap out the musical instrument for a more appropriate tool)
• Sage
• Sailor
• Soldier
• Urchin
These generic backgrounds work great for many medieval human cultures. And feel free to swap one proficiency for an other that feels better for the character concept.
The only generic background that seems to be missing is
• Farmer
Maybe we can come up with a good Farmer background here in this thread?
My only quibble with these generic backgrounds is they are mainly for a nonmagical culture, and work less well for a magical culture. Consider a Eberron-esque background that specializes in some industrial magic, or a fey background that specializes in magical entertainment, or so on. For a magical culture, designing a new background with a magical asset is no problem.
he / him
There's a ton of useful and potentially viable stuff in here for the designers to pick through should they wish. The Cultural stuff, I think (like stonecraft and such) could be tied to where in the world the character is from. All the races have spread around, there's Dwarves in the deserts, Elves in tunnels underground alongside Humans Orcs and even a few Kenku. Anyone who was born in these regions would be at least proficient in, say Stonecraft, if they were from a mountain/rocky/cave type region. You just pick stuff up, living amongst it your whole life. Backgrounds would be after you "grew up" some, so the Halfling who was born in the desert, wanted a major change in life and took to the sea. I think linking a lot of what we saw as "racial perks" could easily make sense in a cultural/regional normalism. (I made up a word, I know)
It would put those options back into the game, which would be nice, but open them to whatever "skin" your character wants to wear. Wizard with Longsword proficiency? Sure, the region he grew up in had, as part of it's regular education system, Longsword training for all citizens. It helped make for a stronger militia when called on. Anything is possible, which is kind of nifty. making for regional differences, and allowing that this fantasy world is much like our own, with all the races now scrambled all over the planet, any species on the list could, theoretically, have bee born and raised anywhere on the map.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I think we're buying in to different assumptions here. I'll explain mine:
Current races are a mix of lineage and culture. Some of the racial benefits are from your lineage and some are from your culture. Then you get additional benefits from your background. So effectively you have three bundles of mechanics that determine your origin: lineage, culture, and background.
If races moving forward are only covering lineage, with the current model you only get two bundles of mechanics: lineage and background. So either the size and shape of those bundles needs to change, or we need to get a third bundle from somewhere else.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
If I understand your concern:
• Past: race (abilities + culture + lineage) + background (culture)
• Future: abilities + lineage + background (culture)
So, according to your point of view, there will be a loss of information. Missing is "race (culture)".
However. The emerging standard format for a race lacks a cultural trait anyway.
The way I look at it, I see calibration. I see no loss.
The races in the Players Handbook are unequal in power. In my eyes, the most powerful is Half-Elf, and the least powerful is Halfling. So, the Players Handbook lacks a standard format for a unit of measure to build an official race.
Now, Tashas presents the Custom Lineage, and this functions now serves as a standard format for the amount of power of an official race. This new format corresponds to the Variant Human in the Players Handbook − which character optimizers considers a potent choice of race.
CUSTOM LINEAGE
VARIANT HUMAN
(Tashas Cauldron)
(Players Handbook)
ALIGNMENT
Any Alignment
Any Alignment
LANGUAGE
Common plus Choice
Common plus Choice
ABILITY SCORES
+2 Any
+1 Any and +1 Any Other
CREATURE TYPE
Humanoid (Any)
Humanoid (Human)
SIZE
Medium or Small
Medium
SPEED
30 feet
30 feet
SKILL
Skill or Darkvision
Skill
FEAT
Feat
Feat
So, as one can see, the Custom Lineage and the Variant Human are the same unit of measurement.
I consider this the standard format. It is the measure of all lineages, whether some are overpowered or underpowered compared to it.
In light of the recent UA moving forward, we have something like:
Individual
• Ability Scores
• Alignment
Lineage
• Size, Speed
• Darkvision or Skill
• Feat
Culture
• Language
• Background
So, there is no loss of information compared to the official format. What might be darkvision, might instead be a choice of skill. While a skill proficiency is normally understood as a cultural feature, perhaps here in the lineage it can be explained as an inborn capacity to learn. It is a choice of any skill. In any case, there is no loss of power for this standard unit of measurement for any official lineage.
Beyond the individual alignment and ability scores, and the lineage traits, the player also chooses a culture via a language and a background.
he / him