This definitely needs to be brought back up. 2024 Players Handbook. Page 36 "Ability Scores and Backgrounds" Strength: Artisan, Entertainer, Farmer, Guard, Noble, Sailor, Soldier. This book tells me that as a Strength based Barbarian I can take the Farmer background which gives me skills and a feat I want. I am trying to put this into D&D Beyond. Just after taking the survey no less. So now the problem I see is this: Either we are still being told to trust WotC and their online tools and the books I paid a buttload of money for are not to be trusted. OR I bought these books, was promised online tools, and the online tools are faulty. Hasbro: WotC, you have been screwing me for decades. Pull your head out.
The farmer background is right there in the builder if you own the 2024 Player's Handbook
Hey. If this has been brought up before I assure you I did do a search of the forums and saw nothing about it, so point me to the consensus or official response should they exist and I'll go to a shame corner.
Why isn't Farmer a background in D&D 5e? Some absurd majority of the people farmed in medieval times and several famous heroes from fiction start their lives as farmers, from D'Artagnan to Superman. Agriculture is drama!
Because the general premise of a level 1 character is not that you're the farm boy who just picked up a real sword for the first time a week ago; you've had a notable degree of prior training/experience of one kind or another. And the further out in levels you get at the start of the campaign, the more improbable it is that the most character-defining thing that has happened in the backstory was weathering a few rough years or pulling in a bumper crop. Plus, in design terms, some flavor of typical peseant and Folk Hero are basically interchangable, and Folk Hero both sounds more interesting to the typical player and neatly covers pretty much all "humble rural beginnings" possibilities with one entry. Superman, to use your example, is not recognized in his setting as a farmer; he's recognized as a hero.
Where do you find that premise of a 1st level character? I started in the 70s and a first level PC was: the farm boy who just picked up a real sword for the first time a week ago.
Wizards where teenager maturity types that were apprenticing. A 1st level character is so green they know nothing. If that has changed during the decades I was not involved so be it, but when was it changed to a notable degree of prior training/experience of one kind or another?
Superman, to use your example, is not recognized in his setting as a farmer
Because Clark was the farmer, superman was not. Yet that farmer background for superman was a huge part of his moral character. Superman was strongly rooted to his farmer background.
Lastly, I have learned over the decades, even though one's child hood was only a few years, that background stays with you for decades. It is irrelevant if you hide that background or not, it does stay with the individual even if no one knows what it is/was.
Let’s see- weapon proficiency, armor proficiency/training, skill proficiency, weapon mastery, etc. By definition if you have training then you’ve been, you know, trained. Likewise proficiency and mastery are things that come from training. It’s not absolute RAW, but it’s pretty implicit in the phrasing and structure of fundamental components and 1st level features that the general vision is someone of journeyman experience, not a raw apprentice.
Where do you find that premise of a 1st level character? I started in the 70s and a first level PC was: the farm boy who just picked up a real sword for the first time a week ago.
Wizards where teenager maturity types that were apprenticing. A 1st level character is so green they know nothing. If that has changed during the decades I was not involved so be it, but when was it changed to a notable degree of prior training/experience of one kind or another?
4th edition, I think. Maybe 3rd, but I didn't play that one a lot.
They made the decision that having 1st-level characters who could reasonably be threatened by a housesat was not what people wanted, and made some changes to front-load more capability and durability, which implies your character has some real training.
Of course, "farmer who just picked up a sword" never really worked, even in the original D&Ds. Swords are hard to use. Just being proficient enough in a weapon not to injure yourself means you have training. While old-school D&D combat was much more of a whiff-fest than modern, the characters still had basic competency that doesn't go with "just picked up a sword".
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The farmer background is right there in the builder if you own the 2024 Player's Handbook
So what exactly are you complaining about?
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Where do you find that premise of a 1st level character? I started in the 70s and a first level PC was: the farm boy who just picked up a real sword for the first time a week ago.
Wizards where teenager maturity types that were apprenticing. A 1st level character is so green they know nothing. If that has changed during the decades I was not involved so be it, but when was it changed to a notable degree of prior training/experience of one kind or another?
Because Clark was the farmer, superman was not. Yet that farmer background for superman was a huge part of his moral character. Superman was strongly rooted to his farmer background.
Lastly, I have learned over the decades, even though one's child hood was only a few years, that background stays with you for decades. It is irrelevant if you hide that background or not, it does stay with the individual even if no one knows what it is/was.
Let’s see- weapon proficiency, armor proficiency/training, skill proficiency, weapon mastery, etc. By definition if you have training then you’ve been, you know, trained. Likewise proficiency and mastery are things that come from training. It’s not absolute RAW, but it’s pretty implicit in the phrasing and structure of fundamental components and 1st level features that the general vision is someone of journeyman experience, not a raw apprentice.
4th edition, I think. Maybe 3rd, but I didn't play that one a lot.
They made the decision that having 1st-level characters who could reasonably be threatened by a housesat was not what people wanted, and made some changes to front-load more capability and durability, which implies your character has some real training.
Of course, "farmer who just picked up a sword" never really worked, even in the original D&Ds. Swords are hard to use. Just being proficient enough in a weapon not to injure yourself means you have training. While old-school D&D combat was much more of a whiff-fest than modern, the characters still had basic competency that doesn't go with "just picked up a sword".