It's not a "perception", Kotath. According to the rules you're championing, and according to your own concerns over players somehow knowing Everything and Everyone at All Times? My archaeologist is only allowed to know about archaeology. She is not, for example, allowed to know things about or know people in her hometown, because there's no "Hometown Knowledge" feature on her sheet. She's not allowed to know anything about her family's archaeology-adjacent business, because there's no "Merchant's Daughter" feature on her sheet. She's not allowed to know anything about the current state of the world (despite the fact that a traveling archaeologist that sets up digs in remote locations would need to be keenly aware of at least the general dispositions of the governments that rule those locations) because there's no "Current Events" feature on her sheet.
Hell, she's technically not even allowed to know anything about HER CLASS, because there is no "Knowledge of Artifice" feature on her sheet. She IS an artificer, but she can't know anything about artifice.
It's ridiculous, it makes zero sense, and it inhibits roleplaying and the telling of stories. The primary job of the DM is to adjudicate the player's actions and field their questions. "Do I have any special insight into [X] because of my background/backstory?" is a valid player question. Sometimes the answer is "yes, here's what you know." Sometimes the answer is "Maybe, give me an [X] check." Sometimes the answer is "No, this is outside your purview." In all three cases, a good player accepts the answer and continues the game. It's as easy as that. Ask, be answered, play. None of the extensive, game-bogging horse trading you're worried about, no bad-faith players trying to abuse the lack of hard-coded features to be everything at once. "Do I know anything/anyone related to [X]?" "Yes/Maybe/No." "Cool. All right, here's what I do..."
It's not a "perception", Kotath. According to the rules you're championing, and according to your own concerns over players somehow knowing Everything and Everyone at All Times? My archaeologist is only allowed to know about archaeology. She is not, for example, allowed to know things about or know people in her hometown, because there's no "Hometown Knowledge" feature on her sheet. She's not allowed to know anything about her family's archaeology-adjacent business, because there's no "Merchant's Daughter" feature on her sheet. She's not allowed to know anything about the current state of the world (despite the fact that a traveling archaeologist that sets up digs in remote locations would need to be keenly aware of at least the general dispositions of the governments that rule those locations) because there's no "Current Events" feature on her sheet.
Hell, she's technically not even allowed to know anything about HER CLASS, because there is no "Knowledge of Artifice" feature on her sheet. She IS an artificer, but she can't know anything about artifice.
It's ridiculous, it makes zero sense, and it inhibits roleplaying and the telling of stories. The primary job of the DM is to adjudicate the player's actions and field their questions. "Do I have any special insight into [X] because of my background/backstory?" is a valid player question. Sometimes the answer is "yes, here's what you know." Sometimes the answer is "Maybe, give me an [X] check." Sometimes the answer is "No, this is outside your purview." In all three cases, a good player accepts the answer and continues the game. It's as easy as that. Ask, be answered, play. None of the extensive, game-bogging horse trading you're worried about, no bad-faith players trying to abuse the lack of hard-coded features to be everything at once. "Do I know anything/anyone related to [X]?" "Yes/Maybe/No." "Cool. All right, here's what I do..."
That's all that's needed.
That's a bad-faith reading, and you know it. You have free rein to make up your character's backstory. They should have a history, and that means your character should know at least some of that.
And yet that's been the argument ongoing for something like nine pages now. That if your background isn't locked down to a hard-coded Background Feature that allows you access to one single Meaningful Contact, players will simply write backstories that let them be ninja pirate nobleman samurais that have access to every Background Feature simultaneously. Which is patently ridiculous, yes. No DM worth the title will accept that sort of backstory. And if they did? That's their issue. If they want a tableful of nonsensical bad-fanfiction Super Protagonists, then that's the game they're running.
The constant insinuation that players will mercilessly take advantage of their DM by pushing for things like requisitioning catapults at level 1 (come on, really?) just because their background doesn't say they can't is dumb. It's a TRDSIC problem - "The Rules Don't Say I Can't." The answer is the same as it is for every other TURDSICK issue - the rules don't have to say you can't. The DM is perfectly empowered to say it themself, the same as when a player wants to play an Empyrean because "being a demigod is so cool!"
That's the essence of the argument in a nutshell - proponents of throwing out the entire OPT document want backgrounds to be hedged in with hard-coded rules to prevent edge-case abuses perpetrated against inexperienced/wobbly DMs, people who like the document enjoy the idea of not being unreasonably restricted by background features every table with more than one campaign under its belt ignores anyways.
And yet that's been the argument ongoing for something like nine pages now. That if your background isn't locked down to a hard-coded Background Feature that allows you access to one single Meaningful Contact, players will simply write backstories that let them be ninja pirate nobleman samurais that have access to every Background Feature simultaneously. Which is patently ridiculous, yes. No DM worth the title will accept that sort of backstory. And if they did? That's their issue. If they want a tableful of nonsensical bad-fanfiction Super Protagonists, then that's the game they're running.
The constant insinuation that players will mercilessly take advantage of their DM by pushing for things like requisitioning catapults at level 1 (come on, really?) just because their background doesn't say they can't is dumb. It's a TURDSIC problem - "The Rules Don't Say I Can't." The answer is the same as it is for every other TURDSIC issue - the rules don't have to say you can't. The DM is perfectly empowered to say it themself, the same as when a player wants to play an Empyrean because "being a demigod is so cool!"
That's the essence of the argument in a nutshell - proponents of throwing out the entire OPT document want backgrounds to be hedged in with hard-coded rules to prevent edge-case abuses perpetrated against inexperienced/wobbly DMs, people who like the document enjoy the idea of not being unreasonably restricted by background features every table with more than one campaign under its belt ignores anyways.
You've had a propensity for flying off the handles for as long as I've witnessed you on these forums. If that's your experience, with ludicrously outlandish backgrounds, then I feel sorry for you. Trusting your fellow players (the DM included) to be reasonable should be a given.
Your example looks like an obvious straw man. I don't know who can take you seriously when you make fallacious arguments. Again, you aren't engaging in good-faith. If there are Edge case abuses, as you claim, the general rules can't cover that. They never could.
A single character could have a number of different backgrounds, depending on which elements of their history you want to emphasize. There's actually an entire sidebar about the very subject, but I'll give you two examples of my own.
Arya Stark was born a Noble; forced to flee and hide her identity as an Urchin, and later became an Acolyte to the Many-Faced God. Depending on where you are in her journey, or which parts of her you wish to emphasize, you could adequately build her with any of those backgrounds.
Beauregard Lionett is the child of vinters and managed their bookkeeping for a number of years. Depending on the family's social standing, either Guild Artisan/Merchant or Noble could fit her. But it wasn't a happy life, and she engaged in bootlegging; hence why she ultimately has the Criminal background. Technically, she's a Spy; probably due to her being sold off to and trained by the Cobalt Soul.
You can have a character with a rich history, full of twists and turns, and not break anything. Not even with the current PHB rules. They're just for emphasis. And you can always create a custom background.
Citation needed, please. Please show me where in the rules that having the Historical Knowledge feature somehow renders the History skill useless for anything else for that character, or sets all history related checks at 30+ for that character regardless of what the test is regarding, even if just their home town.
Further citation needed that being an archaeologist means being also an expert on anything current about one's home town. If it is a small town, then everyone normally knows everyone, but if your archaeologist grew up and trained somewhere large enough that archaeologist is an actual profession, archaeology does not likely mean you know anyone much outside your faculty and (likely) university admin staff. It does not mean you have any better idea of where to buy the best dresses in town or what the names of local gang leaders are or who is in charge of any given guard detachment other than maybe that covering the part of town the character comes from..... at least not from being an archaeologist.
Now the DM may well agree the character does know these things. Nothing in the feature or background explicitly says they do not, either.
And that isn't even addressing the 'If you can’t find a feature that matches your desired background, work with your DM to create one,' which does, actually, exist OR the fact that I am arguing in favour of working out something actually reasonable for that character's story rather than choosing from a list.
And that's exactly my point.
The archaeologist in question grew up in the capitol city of the most mercantile nation in the DM's homebrew world, and was a member of what amounted to the upper middle class of that city. "Upper middle class" for Tigisil is "screamingly wealthy elite" of anywhere else, and Star in particular is well known as a limbsmith and automail prosthetic artisan that can craft replacement limbs of class and beauty as well as functionality. She does know where to find the best deal on high-class dresses in Villamoi, or if she doesn't at any given moment she can very well find out without much effort. That knowledge is more or less trivial for her to obtain. She doesn't know Villamoi's criminal element though and would be unable to establish contacts with them even if she exerted herself to do so, and she has no better access to guard force schedules and rosters than any other concerned citizen.
How do I know this? Because I know who the character is. And so does the DM. Any rolls I made to find a pretty new dress would be for how long it took, not whether I could. And if for whatever reason I tried to look up the city's underworld? That wouldn't be a thing I could do and if I seriously tried, the rolls would be for "do you manage to go through the day un-robbed". Similar the guard question - I could certainly ask about guard issues if I needed to, lean on my family's past work and try to play up what connections I could, but that would be dicey and with no guarantee at all of success. I could get what I need, or I get get told off and sour the guard force's opinion of me, depending on.
I don't need Historical Knowledge to tell me any of that. Historical Knowledge doesn't tell me any of that. Historical Knowledge doesn't tell me anything I need to know about that character. I need the one-page dossier I wrote on Star detailing her pre-play history, who she is, what her family did (including her sister, another PC in the party), and why she's wandering the world instead of happily digging up history in a reasonably safe dig site. The OPT document lets me do exactly that without complaint. R5e backgrounds do not. Simple as that.
It's very hard to follow conversations between Yurei and Kotath, for a variety of reasons. Are we talking about the specific degree to which is it obvious that the 1DD and the current 5E BG's are samples? Because they both are, but 1DD has more support an emphasis on how to create your own BG while 5E currently just points as a list of features and says "Use these or just make up your own with no guidance as to how." 1DDgives you a specific list of mechanical widgets, tells you to make up your own back story with some guiding questions, and then allows you to reskin the widgets how you please, which I think is a bit more refined than what we currently have in 5E, but also is only a matter of degree off.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
To the best of my current understanding, the discourse is basically arguing over whether the OPT document should be thrown out entirely on the strength of the current "Background Feature" system in R5e being better for roleplaying than the OPT document. I quite like the OPT document and am deeply against discarding it wholesale, which should be apparent by now. I also actively dislike the background Feature system, seeing it as restrictive and unnecessary as well as heavily discouraging custom/retuned backgrounds. Kotath - again, to the best of my current understanding - sees no point in any of the OPT changes and is arguing that the current chargen system works better, and as such OPT should be discarded entirely. Each of us feels some kind of way about the other's stance
"Incorporating the concept of features" means doing exactly what Inverse Gospel mentioned and directing players to "Choose or establish one (1) Significant Contact. This Significant Contact is a person, a group of persons, or an organization that is willing to offer material aid to your character due to historic connections or services rendered by that character. Once you have determined your Significant Contact, record it on your character sheet as an Ally. DMs should not permit any character to obtain material aid from any source that is not a Significant Contact, nor should any character ever possess more than one Significant Ally at a time. If the character acts in a way significantly counter to the interests of their Significant Ally, that Ally revokes the status of Significant Ally; roll percentile dice to determine if the Significant Ally instead becomes a Rival or even an Enemy, and consult table 4.2.10b in the Game Master's Manual to determine the effects of the percentile roll."
That is awful and stifling, and goes against the spirit of the game. We don't need hard-coded rules telling us who we can talk to, and who will punch us in the face for daring to even speak to them.
I feel like if we wanted a mechanically significant part of a Background as a Feature, level 1 Feats are pretty nice and discrete mechanical packages to represent those. Outside of that, we have Personality, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws to establish other character facts along with the backstory blurb.
Elaborating on those could help, I suppose, but I would prefer if it comes in the form of explaining how to use them rather than adding more mechanical widgets.
Again, I will ask you who, exactly, you are responding to, since I just finished saying that features are not restrictive and no one but you and Inverse are arguing that they prohibit there being more to the background.
Do you also believe that Subclass features prohibit the existence and use of Class features? Or of general rules?
One of your primary arguments a few pages ago was that if a background does not strictly define who a character is allowed to request aid from and what that aid is allowed to be, then first-level PCs would requisition full platemail, catapults, fleets of warhorses, entire platoons of NPC soldiers...whatever they felt like with no restraint, because they said "I'm a soldier" in their backstory and apparently that entitles them to full mobilization of every soldier and weapon in their entire nation.
You are the one who has claimed, more than once, that DMs should not trust their players to be reasonable in what they ask, or that DMs are somehow incapable of shooting down players who decide that the lack of a fixed, hard-coded "you are only allowed to ask [X] for [Y] and nothing else" 'Feature' means they now have a greater degree of say in where men and supply move about a nation than that nation's government.
What Inverse and I are saying is that only complete and utter newbies or bad actors are going to try and do that, and the newbie can be set straight with one simple "that's beyond the scope of what a low-level adventurer can accomplish" explanation from a DM.
I feel like if we wanted a mechanically significant part of a Background as a Feature, level 1 Feats are pretty nice and discrete mechanical packages to represent those. Outside of that, we have Personality, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws to establish other character facts along with the backstory blurb.
Elaborating on those could help, I suppose, but I would prefer if it comes in the form of explaining how to use them rather than adding more mechanical widgets.
So, even going with the 'But those are level 1 feats' argument, are you therefore insisting that the current list of level 1 feats are all there should ever be?
Oh absolutely not, if those were all the level 1 Feats that would be pretty anemic.
That if the equivalent the the Sage research ability was available as one of those level 1 feats, or the Archaeologist's Historical Knowledge was available as one of those level 1 feats, that the level 1 feats would be a horrible concept?
No, I think level 1 Feats would be a good place to put those. Though I would want to make them actual mechanical effects and not just narrative permissions. Narrative permissions Can already be obtained from the back story as well as PIBF. Just spitballing, but there could be an Expert Feat, where you get proficiency in one Skill and Expertise in that Skill as well, which would cover all the various experts in their fields (Sage = Investigation, Archaeologist = History, etc.) and then maybe a Organization Member Feat to cover all the official card carrying members of an organization (automatic bump up in the Attitude chart for members and Advantage on social and mental rolls regarding the org or something). Just spitballing.
Aren't the new level 1 feats, those we have not seen before now, 'more mechanical widgits?' What makes them 'good' and feat-like 5e features 'bad?'
Yes, the level 1 Feats are mechanical widgets and that doesn't make the current system bad, it's just that the 1DD system is very clear about what is a mechanical widget and what is not. Background features are mechanical and they are Feats. Background details are narrative and they are part of the backstory. I like the clarity and the delineation.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Yes, the level 1 Feats are mechanical widgets and that doesn't make the current system bad, it's just that the 1DD system is very clear about what is a mechanical widget and what is not. Background features are mechanical and they are Feats. Background details are narrative and they are part of the backstory. I like the clarity and the delineation.
I also like this!
So I can do this, take say Acolyte...
ACOLYTE Ability Scores:+2 Wisdom, +1 Intelligence Skill Proficiencies:Insight, Religion Tool Proficiency:Calligrapher’s Supplies Language:Celestial Feat:Magic Initiate (Divine) You devoted yourself to service in a temple, either nestled in a town or secluded in a sacred grove. There you performed hallowed rites in honor of a god or pantheon. You served under a priestand studied religion. Thanks to your priest’s instruction and your own devotion, you also learned how to channel a modicum of divine power in service to your place of worship and the people who prayed there. Equipment Book (Prayers) Calligrapher’s Supplies Holy Symbol Parchment (10 sheets) Robe 3 GP
and I can rewrite it to match a new character such as:
Blade of Tyr Ability Scores:+2 Strength, +1 Charisma Skill Proficiencies: Persuasion, Religion Tool Proficiency:Flute Language:Celestial Feat:Magic Initiate (Divine) Raise in a low-noble household of neverwinter, you devoted yourself to service of the triad and within the hallowed halls of the Temple of Tyr you made your oath to the Maimed God of Justice. At home you studied the blade and the temple you studied the scripture. In reverence to your home and temple you take up the blade to serve your faith. Thanks to your priest’s instruction, you also learned how to channel a modicum of divine power in service to the Triad and the people whom they watch over. Equipment Book (Prayers) Flute Holy Symbol Parchment (10 sheets) Hide Armor Shortsword 3 rations waterskin Pouch 3 SP
This is how I understand the feature will work. I think this is wonderful, you can just create a background like this, let me know if I got this wrong.
I also agree regarding the Narrative permissions and feats too, I personally put on the survey that the feats are a bit limited, there should be a feat that shows your character's experience/expertise and a feat that shows your characters personality or culture, which should pull from distinct lists for level 1. So two feats but gives a bit more flavour to the character.
I also agree regarding the Narrative permissions and feats too, I personally put on the survey that the feats are a bit limited, there should be a feat that shows your character's experience/expertise and a feat that shows your characters personality or culture, which should pull from distinct lists for level 1. So two feats but gives a bit more flavour to the character.
See that feels like too much, for me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I also agree regarding the Narrative permissions and feats too, I personally put on the survey that the feats are a bit limited, there should be a feat that shows your character's experience/expertise and a feat that shows your characters personality or culture, which should pull from distinct lists for level 1. So two feats but gives a bit more flavour to the character.
See that feels like too much, for me.
I don't think it is, since 1 of them is specific to culture/personality, it doesn't add anything to combat, it might be crafting, it might be social like diplomacy or performance based. The feat could even be one for a Narrative permissions in itself, or it could be one that is about knowing certain geology or history. It's something to just give something a bit more personal about the character. This second thing does not even need be called a feat, it could be called something else to make it easiest to distinguish.
I feel like if we wanted a mechanically significant part of a Background as a Feature, level 1 Feats are pretty nice and discrete mechanical packages to represent those. Outside of that, we have Personality, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws to establish other character facts along with the backstory blurb.
Elaborating on those could help, I suppose, but I would prefer if it comes in the form of explaining how to use them rather than adding more mechanical widgets.
So, even going with the 'But those are level 1 feats' argument, are you therefore insisting that the current list of level 1 feats are all there should ever be?
Oh absolutely not, if those were all the level 1 Feats that would be pretty anemic.
That if the equivalent the the Sage research ability was available as one of those level 1 feats, or the Archaeologist's Historical Knowledge was available as one of those level 1 feats, that the level 1 feats would be a horrible concept?
No, I think level 1 Feats would be a good place to put those. Though I would want to make them actual mechanical effects and not just narrative permissions. Narrative permissions Can already be obtained from the back story as well as PIBF. Just spitballing, but there could be an Expert Feat, where you get proficiency in one Skill and Expertise in that Skill as well, which would cover all the various experts in their fields (Sage = Investigation, Archaeologist = History, etc.) and then maybe a Organization Member Feat to cover all the official card carrying members of an organization (automatic bump up in the Attitude chart for members and Advantage on social and mental rolls regarding the org or something). Just spitballing.
Aren't the new level 1 feats, those we have not seen before now, 'more mechanical widgits?' What makes them 'good' and feat-like 5e features 'bad?'
Yes, the level 1 Feats are mechanical widgets and that doesn't make the current system bad, it's just that the 1DD system is very clear about what is a mechanical widget and what is not. Background features are mechanical and they are Feats. Background details are narrative and they are part of the backstory. I like the clarity and the delineation.
Fair enough. To me, I don't see the level 1 feats as tying that well to professions, at least not in particularly profession defining ways, either by being too broad in scope or too generic in nature.
They work for some professions but not so well for others. The former features (or at least those with relatively unique mechanics) did at least make that attempt.
I do respect your position, though.
And I don't think they all do.
One of my players used the OD&D to modify the Criminal Background. They swapped out the proficiency with Stealth and Thieves' Tools for proficiency with Investigation and a Forgery Kit. But we couldn't come up with a good 1st-level feat, so Alert stayed.
Why wouldn't every PC declare their character Nobility with useful, friendly contacts everywhere, giving them authority and free food and lodging everywhere? Oh, and so respected as a craftsman that anything you make is in demand and you have no problems finding markets for anything you might want to sell, friends in both high and low places, never needing to worry about booking passage anywhere, that is always covered for free etc, etc, etc? You seem to be discounting the value of each and every one of these and speaking like they should all be taken for granted.
Because the game would be boring and pointless if you did. We are all adults here, and can recognize when something is reasonable or not without the book telling us. You keep talking about trusting your DM, so trust your players to make decisions that make sense within their characters' stories.
Why wouldn't I declare my characters nobility to get the benefits of being a noble? Because they're not a noble. I don't want to play as a noble, so I don't. It's that simple.
If your group is all 5-year-olds who, if allowed, would build characters by going "and they have a million dollars and everyone likes them and they can craft anything they want and they get free stuff everywhere bc everyone likes them so much" then you should maybe find a new group.
Many of the original 5e background features were pointless because they let you do things that you should be able to do anyway just by talking to your DM about your backstory. Some of them were neat, but there's nothing stopping you from talking to your DM about converting the good features into lvl 1 feats so you can use them in the new system. This change is simply an improvement in every conceivable way over the old system.
I just want Roleplay based features like acolyte ensuring you will get help from other followers of a deity or feylost letting you have an animal tail and having fey be friendlier to you, aswell as background exclusive items like prayer wheel, scroll of pedigree or feywild trinkets, to continue existing.
You keep complaining about this everywhere, that they're taking away "social features" in favor of mean nasty grinchy crunchy Combat Crap 'nobody wants'.
Did you, like...read the thread? At all, before you posted in it?
The primary reason capital-BF Background Features were dispensed with, before people like the grognards in this thread got the Origins document thrown out, was because most any reasonable DM will just give you those things. They're not real features, they don't DO anything. They're Mommy-may-I restrictions that block players from having diverse, flexible backstories and force them to instead conform to one single narrow thing they're forced to make the entire identity of their whole-ass character. The "Shelter of the Faithful" feature of the Acolyte doesn't give you anything a DM shouldn't already give you, if you're roleplaying a devout follower of your deity.
As for narrative frippery like prayer wheels, letters from dead colleagues, or shit like that? Just add it to your sheet. Spend a few silver on it or something if you like and your DM insists, but things like that which have sentimental or narrative value to a character without mechanical impact? Nobody cares if you just have it. Hell, as a DM I'd encourage that sort of thing, help players figure it out if they want. I routinely ask the DMs for the games I play in for narrative-oriented tweaks.
That stuff doesn't need to be codified, bolted down, and turned into shackles on your game.
It's not a "perception", Kotath. According to the rules you're championing, and according to your own concerns over players somehow knowing Everything and Everyone at All Times? My archaeologist is only allowed to know about archaeology. She is not, for example, allowed to know things about or know people in her hometown, because there's no "Hometown Knowledge" feature on her sheet. She's not allowed to know anything about her family's archaeology-adjacent business, because there's no "Merchant's Daughter" feature on her sheet. She's not allowed to know anything about the current state of the world (despite the fact that a traveling archaeologist that sets up digs in remote locations would need to be keenly aware of at least the general dispositions of the governments that rule those locations) because there's no "Current Events" feature on her sheet.
Hell, she's technically not even allowed to know anything about HER CLASS, because there is no "Knowledge of Artifice" feature on her sheet. She IS an artificer, but she can't know anything about artifice.
It's ridiculous, it makes zero sense, and it inhibits roleplaying and the telling of stories. The primary job of the DM is to adjudicate the player's actions and field their questions. "Do I have any special insight into [X] because of my background/backstory?" is a valid player question. Sometimes the answer is "yes, here's what you know." Sometimes the answer is "Maybe, give me an [X] check." Sometimes the answer is "No, this is outside your purview." In all three cases, a good player accepts the answer and continues the game. It's as easy as that. Ask, be answered, play. None of the extensive, game-bogging horse trading you're worried about, no bad-faith players trying to abuse the lack of hard-coded features to be everything at once. "Do I know anything/anyone related to [X]?" "Yes/Maybe/No." "Cool. All right, here's what I do..."
That's all that's needed.
Please do not contact or message me.
That's a bad-faith reading, and you know it. You have free rein to make up your character's backstory. They should have a history, and that means your character should know at least some of that.
And yet that's been the argument ongoing for something like nine pages now. That if your background isn't locked down to a hard-coded Background Feature that allows you access to one single Meaningful Contact, players will simply write backstories that let them be ninja pirate nobleman samurais that have access to every Background Feature simultaneously. Which is patently ridiculous, yes. No DM worth the title will accept that sort of backstory. And if they did? That's their issue. If they want a tableful of nonsensical bad-fanfiction Super Protagonists, then that's the game they're running.
The constant insinuation that players will mercilessly take advantage of their DM by pushing for things like requisitioning catapults at level 1 (come on, really?) just because their background doesn't say they can't is dumb. It's a TRDSIC problem - "The Rules Don't Say I Can't." The answer is the same as it is for every other TURDSICK issue - the rules don't have to say you can't. The DM is perfectly empowered to say it themself, the same as when a player wants to play an Empyrean because "being a demigod is so cool!"
That's the essence of the argument in a nutshell - proponents of throwing out the entire OPT document want backgrounds to be hedged in with hard-coded rules to prevent edge-case abuses perpetrated against inexperienced/wobbly DMs, people who like the document enjoy the idea of not being unreasonably restricted by background features every table with more than one campaign under its belt ignores anyways.
Please do not contact or message me.
You've had a propensity for flying off the handles for as long as I've witnessed you on these forums. If that's your experience, with ludicrously outlandish backgrounds, then I feel sorry for you. Trusting your fellow players (the DM included) to be reasonable should be a given.
Your example looks like an obvious straw man. I don't know who can take you seriously when you make fallacious arguments. Again, you aren't engaging in good-faith. If there are Edge case abuses, as you claim, the general rules can't cover that. They never could.
A single character could have a number of different backgrounds, depending on which elements of their history you want to emphasize. There's actually an entire sidebar about the very subject, but I'll give you two examples of my own.
Arya Stark was born a Noble; forced to flee and hide her identity as an Urchin, and later became an Acolyte to the Many-Faced God. Depending on where you are in her journey, or which parts of her you wish to emphasize, you could adequately build her with any of those backgrounds.
Beauregard Lionett is the child of vinters and managed their bookkeeping for a number of years. Depending on the family's social standing, either Guild Artisan/Merchant or Noble could fit her. But it wasn't a happy life, and she engaged in bootlegging; hence why she ultimately has the Criminal background. Technically, she's a Spy; probably due to her being sold off to and trained by the Cobalt Soul.
You can have a character with a rich history, full of twists and turns, and not break anything. Not even with the current PHB rules. They're just for emphasis. And you can always create a custom background.
And that's exactly my point.
The archaeologist in question grew up in the capitol city of the most mercantile nation in the DM's homebrew world, and was a member of what amounted to the upper middle class of that city. "Upper middle class" for Tigisil is "screamingly wealthy elite" of anywhere else, and Star in particular is well known as a limbsmith and
automailprosthetic artisan that can craft replacement limbs of class and beauty as well as functionality. She does know where to find the best deal on high-class dresses in Villamoi, or if she doesn't at any given moment she can very well find out without much effort. That knowledge is more or less trivial for her to obtain. She doesn't know Villamoi's criminal element though and would be unable to establish contacts with them even if she exerted herself to do so, and she has no better access to guard force schedules and rosters than any other concerned citizen.How do I know this? Because I know who the character is. And so does the DM. Any rolls I made to find a pretty new dress would be for how long it took, not whether I could. And if for whatever reason I tried to look up the city's underworld? That wouldn't be a thing I could do and if I seriously tried, the rolls would be for "do you manage to go through the day un-robbed". Similar the guard question - I could certainly ask about guard issues if I needed to, lean on my family's past work and try to play up what connections I could, but that would be dicey and with no guarantee at all of success. I could get what I need, or I get get told off and sour the guard force's opinion of me, depending on.
I don't need Historical Knowledge to tell me any of that. Historical Knowledge doesn't tell me any of that. Historical Knowledge doesn't tell me anything I need to know about that character.
I need the one-page dossier I wrote on Star detailing her pre-play history, who she is, what her family did (including her sister, another PC in the party), and why she's wandering the world instead of happily digging up history in a reasonably safe dig site.
The OPT document lets me do exactly that without complaint. R5e backgrounds do not. Simple as that.
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It's very hard to follow conversations between Yurei and Kotath, for a variety of reasons. Are we talking about the specific degree to which is it obvious that the 1DD and the current 5E BG's are samples? Because they both are, but 1DD has more support an emphasis on how to create your own BG while 5E currently just points as a list of features and says "Use these or just make up your own with no guidance as to how." 1DDgives you a specific list of mechanical widgets, tells you to make up your own back story with some guiding questions, and then allows you to reskin the widgets how you please, which I think is a bit more refined than what we currently have in 5E, but also is only a matter of degree off.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
To the best of my current understanding, the discourse is basically arguing over whether the OPT document should be thrown out entirely on the strength of the current "Background Feature" system in R5e being better for roleplaying than the OPT document. I quite like the OPT document and am deeply against discarding it wholesale, which should be apparent by now. I also actively dislike the background Feature system, seeing it as restrictive and unnecessary as well as heavily discouraging custom/retuned backgrounds. Kotath - again, to the best of my current understanding - sees no point in any of the OPT changes and is arguing that the current chargen system works better, and as such OPT should be discarded entirely. Each of us feels some kind of way about the other's stance
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"Incorporating the concept of features" means doing exactly what Inverse Gospel mentioned and directing players to "Choose or establish one (1) Significant Contact. This Significant Contact is a person, a group of persons, or an organization that is willing to offer material aid to your character due to historic connections or services rendered by that character. Once you have determined your Significant Contact, record it on your character sheet as an Ally. DMs should not permit any character to obtain material aid from any source that is not a Significant Contact, nor should any character ever possess more than one Significant Ally at a time. If the character acts in a way significantly counter to the interests of their Significant Ally, that Ally revokes the status of Significant Ally; roll percentile dice to determine if the Significant Ally instead becomes a Rival or even an Enemy, and consult table 4.2.10b in the Game Master's Manual to determine the effects of the percentile roll."
That is awful and stifling, and goes against the spirit of the game. We don't need hard-coded rules telling us who we can talk to, and who will punch us in the face for daring to even speak to them.
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I feel like if we wanted a mechanically significant part of a Background as a Feature, level 1 Feats are pretty nice and discrete mechanical packages to represent those. Outside of that, we have Personality, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws to establish other character facts along with the backstory blurb.
Elaborating on those could help, I suppose, but I would prefer if it comes in the form of explaining how to use them rather than adding more mechanical widgets.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
One of your primary arguments a few pages ago was that if a background does not strictly define who a character is allowed to request aid from and what that aid is allowed to be, then first-level PCs would requisition full platemail, catapults, fleets of warhorses, entire platoons of NPC soldiers...whatever they felt like with no restraint, because they said "I'm a soldier" in their backstory and apparently that entitles them to full mobilization of every soldier and weapon in their entire nation.
You are the one who has claimed, more than once, that DMs should not trust their players to be reasonable in what they ask, or that DMs are somehow incapable of shooting down players who decide that the lack of a fixed, hard-coded "you are only allowed to ask [X] for [Y] and nothing else" 'Feature' means they now have a greater degree of say in where men and supply move about a nation than that nation's government.
What Inverse and I are saying is that only complete and utter newbies or bad actors are going to try and do that, and the newbie can be set straight with one simple "that's beyond the scope of what a low-level adventurer can accomplish" explanation from a DM.
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Oh absolutely not, if those were all the level 1 Feats that would be pretty anemic.
No, I think level 1 Feats would be a good place to put those. Though I would want to make them actual mechanical effects and not just narrative permissions. Narrative permissions Can already be obtained from the back story as well as PIBF. Just spitballing, but there could be an Expert Feat, where you get proficiency in one Skill and Expertise in that Skill as well, which would cover all the various experts in their fields (Sage = Investigation, Archaeologist = History, etc.) and then maybe a Organization Member Feat to cover all the official card carrying members of an organization (automatic bump up in the Attitude chart for members and Advantage on social and mental rolls regarding the org or something). Just spitballing.
Yes, the level 1 Feats are mechanical widgets and that doesn't make the current system bad, it's just that the 1DD system is very clear about what is a mechanical widget and what is not. Background features are mechanical and they are Feats. Background details are narrative and they are part of the backstory. I like the clarity and the delineation.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I also like this!
So I can do this, take say Acolyte...
and I can rewrite it to match a new character such as:
This is how I understand the feature will work. I think this is wonderful, you can just create a background like this, let me know if I got this wrong.
I also agree regarding the Narrative permissions and feats too, I personally put on the survey that the feats are a bit limited, there should be a feat that shows your character's experience/expertise and a feat that shows your characters personality or culture, which should pull from distinct lists for level 1. So two feats but gives a bit more flavour to the character.
See that feels like too much, for me.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I don't think it is, since 1 of them is specific to culture/personality, it doesn't add anything to combat, it might be crafting, it might be social like diplomacy or performance based. The feat could even be one for a Narrative permissions in itself, or it could be one that is about knowing certain geology or history. It's something to just give something a bit more personal about the character. This second thing does not even need be called a feat, it could be called something else to make it easiest to distinguish.
I just think adding more layers of mechanics to it is very unnecessary. That stuff could go in the backstory blurb.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
And I don't think they all do.
One of my players used the OD&D to modify the Criminal Background. They swapped out the proficiency with Stealth and Thieves' Tools for proficiency with Investigation and a Forgery Kit. But we couldn't come up with a good 1st-level feat, so Alert stayed.
Because the game would be boring and pointless if you did. We are all adults here, and can recognize when something is reasonable or not without the book telling us. You keep talking about trusting your DM, so trust your players to make decisions that make sense within their characters' stories.
Why wouldn't I declare my characters nobility to get the benefits of being a noble? Because they're not a noble. I don't want to play as a noble, so I don't. It's that simple.
If your group is all 5-year-olds who, if allowed, would build characters by going "and they have a million dollars and everyone likes them and they can craft anything they want and they get free stuff everywhere bc everyone likes them so much" then you should maybe find a new group.
Many of the original 5e background features were pointless because they let you do things that you should be able to do anyway just by talking to your DM about your backstory. Some of them were neat, but there's nothing stopping you from talking to your DM about converting the good features into lvl 1 feats so you can use them in the new system. This change is simply an improvement in every conceivable way over the old system.
no, it means that d&d fans have poor reading comprehension. Or they just didn't read the document. I'm not sure how it could have been made clearer.
You keep complaining about this everywhere, that they're taking away "social features" in favor of mean nasty grinchy crunchy Combat Crap 'nobody wants'.
Did you, like...read the thread? At all, before you posted in it?
The primary reason capital-BF Background Features were dispensed with, before people like the grognards in this thread got the Origins document thrown out, was because most any reasonable DM will just give you those things. They're not real features, they don't DO anything. They're Mommy-may-I restrictions that block players from having diverse, flexible backstories and force them to instead conform to one single narrow thing they're forced to make the entire identity of their whole-ass character. The "Shelter of the Faithful" feature of the Acolyte doesn't give you anything a DM shouldn't already give you, if you're roleplaying a devout follower of your deity.
As for narrative frippery like prayer wheels, letters from dead colleagues, or shit like that? Just add it to your sheet. Spend a few silver on it or something if you like and your DM insists, but things like that which have sentimental or narrative value to a character without mechanical impact? Nobody cares if you just have it. Hell, as a DM I'd encourage that sort of thing, help players figure it out if they want. I routinely ask the DMs for the games I play in for narrative-oriented tweaks.
That stuff doesn't need to be codified, bolted down, and turned into shackles on your game.
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Agreed
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.