I've always sort-of glossed over backgrounds as being kinda irrelevant and mostly superfluous. I generally make up my own for my own characters and pay lip service to them as a DM, unless the player mentions their background feature as being relevant to a situation or roleplays the background enough that it's more than just flavour-text. But in actually creating them for homebrewing here, I've realised just how much work has to go into them. Balancing feats, or spells, or whatever, is generally pretty easy for me, and it's not like the creative part of the background is hard for me, it's more the sheer amount of actual effort that is required to build them.
Filling out all those tables, making up all the flavour-text, figuring out which proficiencies/tools/languages are suitable, all requires quite a lot of thought. If anything, the background feature requires the least amount of effort of the entire thing.
Yeah, while feats, spells, and magic items are mostly mechanics, a background is mostly story; embracing the roleplay and not just the rollplay. With story and adding enough sheer choice, it can be overwhelming.
Edit: I wanted to add that I have my players, who are usually first-timers, pick a background as a way to help funnel their thinking about where the character came from and how that influenced them.
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
By being presented as a mandatory part of character creation, they force players to see their characters as people and not just monster-killing machines.
They ensure every character has some baseline non-combat benefits, which players wouldn't choose if they had to choose between combat benefits and "fluff".
They give players that have a hard time coming up with character backstories an easy out. They can just flip through the pages, pick whatever background resonates with them the most, and then either pick character traits from the list or roll randomly.
They're loose enough that DMs can tailor something to specific players if none of the stock options work from them, but have enough structure to them that the DM doesn't have to worry about the result being weaker or stronger than another character's. For some players, roleplaying and impacting the fictional world is what drives them, so a custom background is a really easy way for a DM to give those players a lot of happiness with just a little bit of work.
By forcing players to write down a few character tidbits on paper, and giving characters some vague trinkets, it gives DMs hooks for social encounters and working in a character's backstory into their world.
The background-specific features are pretty text-heavy, but you can just write down the name and the PH page it's in and refer to it when it comes up.
I'm actually finding that, in the character creator, I really quite like using the "Suggested Characteristics" section. Looking through the options and clicking on an add button has actually made me look at the options rather than ignore them as I previously did when browsing them in the book.
They're also one of the fun parts of creating a homebrew background here.
I find that they are INVALUABLE for new players who are trying to get their head around the idea of playing a character. I love the fact that you can customize and tweak existing backgrounds in the homebrew here, because by changing a few words in a few options, you can drastically alter the flavor of most backgrounds.
I've always sort-of glossed over backgrounds as being kinda irrelevant and mostly superfluous. I generally make up my own for my own characters and pay lip service to them as a DM, unless the player mentions their background feature as being relevant to a situation or roleplays the background enough that it's more than just flavour-text. But in actually creating them for homebrewing here, I've realised just how much work has to go into them. Balancing feats, or spells, or whatever, is generally pretty easy for me, and it's not like the creative part of the background is hard for me, it's more the sheer amount of actual effort that is required to build them.
Filling out all those tables, making up all the flavour-text, figuring out which proficiencies/tools/languages are suitable, all requires quite a lot of thought. If anything, the background feature requires the least amount of effort of the entire thing.
Yeah, while feats, spells, and magic items are mostly mechanics, a background is mostly story; embracing the roleplay and not just the rollplay. With story and adding enough sheer choice, it can be overwhelming.
Edit: I wanted to add that I have my players, who are usually first-timers, pick a background as a way to help funnel their thinking about where the character came from and how that influenced them.
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Astromancer's Homebrew Assembly
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
Backgrounds are great for a ton of reasons:
The background-specific features are pretty text-heavy, but you can just write down the name and the PH page it's in and refer to it when it comes up.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
I'm actually finding that, in the character creator, I really quite like using the "Suggested Characteristics" section. Looking through the options and clicking on an add button has actually made me look at the options rather than ignore them as I previously did when browsing them in the book.
They're also one of the fun parts of creating a homebrew background here.
I find that they are INVALUABLE for new players who are trying to get their head around the idea of playing a character. I love the fact that you can customize and tweak existing backgrounds in the homebrew here, because by changing a few words in a few options, you can drastically alter the flavor of most backgrounds.
I make stuff on DMs Guild, DriveThruRPG, & Storytellers Vault. I stream things on Twitch.