I think that requiring a feature written in to allow narrative things like association with a particular faction with no other benefit sets a bad precedent. Those things should be just hashed out with the DM as part of the back story. Mechanical features should be mechanical features and narrative features should be narrative features. I like that there is a clear delineation between discrete mechanical packages like Feats and the "write your own freeform" bits. I think having Background features be Feats accomplishes that.
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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!
List of Backgrounds in R5e Whose Background Features Are Aggressively Pointless and are Things Any Good DM Should Just F@#$ing Let You Do:
Acolyte (what self-respecting temple is going to turn you away just because you didn't grow up there? Shelter of the Faithful is so piss-miserable it's almost offensive.)
Athlete (You have a 50% chance of being famous enough to earn extremely basic information or shelter by being a famous athlete? No. Bad. Try again.)
Archaeologist (Oh wow, I don't need to roll a history check to know basic f@#$ing history of a place! By Ogden's hammer what value!)
Celebrity Adventurer's Scion (this is LITERALLY saying "the DM might let you use your connections to get minor boons, or they might not". It's not even an actual feature!)
Charlatan ("You have disguises and forged papers letting you pretend to be someone else!" ...I have Disguise and Forgery kit proficiency with this background, I should f@#$ing hope my CHARLATAN can pretend to be someone else.)
City Watch/Investigator ("You know where lawmen and criminals both like to hang out." NOOO! Something I could get through one day's casing the town with a DC 10 at most Investigation check?! Incredible! Such feature! Much value! Wow!)
Clan Crafter (Another in the long, long, long list of background 'features' that say "people who know and like you will know and like you and may possibly help you!" THAT IS NOT A FEATURE THAT'S JUST D&D)
Cloistered Scholar (name me one single time a DM has not allowed players access to a library. One. One time. Nothing? Yeah, me either. Even Mercer let total rubes into the Cobalt Archives, if with supervision.)
Courtier (Another "this 'feature' simply describes what the DM should allow someone to do simply for being this thing" feature. Lovely.)
Criminal ("My criminal knows other criminals and can occasionally talk to them if the DM lets me!" Thrilling. Such feature. Much value. Wow.)
Entertainer (the epitome of "why can't I just do this?" Hell, this 'feature' TAKES AWAY from the player because it removes their ability to describe/declare how they perform! They just get minor room and board without getting to actually perform!)
Faction Agent (this should never have even been a background in the first place.)
Failed Merchant (Acq Inq. is good for a laugh, but bad for providing backgrounds with neaingful 'features'. This is just another "you know people it would make sense for you to know and can occasionally talk to them and maybe get stuff" feature. That's just playing D&D, it doesn't need a goddamn feature)
Far Traveler ("You're a weirdo and people might occasionally think enough of your novelty to throw you a dog biscuit." No. Bad. Try again.)
Feylost (AGAIN, this is something that should just happen if it makes sense for the Feylost character in question.)
Fisher (Almost want to give this one a pass because it at least tries. But it's still "you can do the thing your background says you can do". Fishermen can fish? No! It can't be!)
Folk Hero (Toss a coin to your Witcher, O valley of plenty, O valley of plenty, whooOOooaah!)
Gladiator (Entertainer in a Fight Club guise. Still easily the worst background "feature" in D&D)
Grinner (Sorry Mercer, you don't get a pass for Faction Agent Exandria Style any more than the Sword Coast does)
Guild Artisan/Merchant (holy ****, a background you have to PAY FOR in order to gain the privlege of ****-all! 5gp a month plus the compulsory donation of sums of coin and magical items so the guild can say "sorry, we can't help because the DM wants you to actually play D&D, go adventure now please". This is a pretty damn close contender to Entertainer for Worst Background Feature in D&D, and frankly it might even eclipse it. What an absolutely godawful feature.)
Haunted One (Toss a coin to your Witcher, a friend of humanityyyyy!!)
Investigator (oh wow, your background feature lets you investigate crime?! Who would have EVER guessed?!)
Knight of the Order (another 'people who like you might offer minor, modest help based on liking you!' feature. F@#$ING STOP IT, WIZARDS)
Mercenary Veteran (Mercenaries know mercenary things? Noo! Mercenaries can do mercenary work? YOU'RE AN ADVENTURER, YOU'RE ALREADY DOING MERCENARY WORK)
Noble (Another "I'm an [X], I can do [X] things" background that shouldn't require stating. This is ridiculous.)
Pirate (this one is just not f@#$ing true. DMs will find a way to make you pay for your crimes and actively ignore your background feature telling you they shouldn't, because that's how D&D works.)
Plaintiff ("You can roll Deception checks to try and screw with people." Gee, I'm so glad I picked the one background in all of D&D that allows me to roll Deception checks!)
Rival Intern (Man, Acq. Inq is very bad at this.)
Sage ("You can roll History checks to know things, and if you fail the check you might know where to go to get another chance to roll." Cool. So glad I picked the one background in all of D&D that lets me roll History checks!)
Sailor (I can get on boats and travel? HOLY CRAP, IT'S ALMOST LIKE I SPENT MY WHOLE LIFE DOING THAT AND SHOULD KNOW HOW IT WORKS!)
Soldier (can we PLEASE STOP with the "I'm an [X], I can do [X] things" background features? They're awful, PLEASE.)
Urban Bounty Hunter ("You can talk to people who're related to your profession and they might aid you if you roll well enough or can convince the DM." Well thanks for the permission to play D&D there, Mr. Pointless Background Feature.)
Urchin (at what point does travel time in a city matter, and even when it does, at what point is a DM going to allow a background feature to spoil their fancy Race Through The Streets or whatever else makes travel time through a city actually matter?)
Uthgardt Tribe member ("I'm a member of the Uthgardt Tribes and they will treat me like one." yes...yes, Background Feature, that is indeed what is implied by the name 'Uthgardt Tribe Member'...)
Waterdhavion Noble (Your nobleman can live like a nobleman? HOLY CAPTAIN OBVIOUS, BATMAN!)
Wicthlight Hand ("You joined the circus and have made friends in it while spending your life working there." Well I should bloody well hope so.)
Tell me, Kotath. Why would anyone ever want one of these backgrounds when there's five or six that actually do things? I've played a number of them for story purposes, but man - it's really just super obnoxious to see my Super Special Unique background Feature be "you can do the thing everybody expects you to be able to do and you will receive the expected compensation for it." That is not, and will never be, a "Feature.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I consider the skill, tool, and language proficiencies they offer, and generally it helps me pick a background that for a character. Since the tools and proficiencies may be secondary or even tertiary choices unlike ASI's, I can be more flexible in what I choose, allowing me to pick up both some rp skills and give some individual flavor to the character I may not have considered.
I've taken the farseeker, the charlatan, OFTEN the urchin or criminal for thieves tools,(and creating a lot of complexity in at least one of my characters that leans more lawful despite a criminal past he wants to put behind him, despite the useful skills: something akin to the character in the O. Henry story about the guy with a criminal past that is the only one who can save a girl locked in a bank safe...).
The skills make these backgrounds worth taking and are a great RP teaser as is. The new backgrounds are trash because they want to force ASI's which are PRIMARY choices in character creation, which railroads characters into even worse little boxes than the species ASI's do because we all know not all orcs are barbarians, not all elves are thieves, not all tortles are wizards, etc.
This feels like it pushes background choices to be railroaded too much.
EDIT: Crap. Grabbed the wrong quote initially. Tried to fix it.
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.
Can I just say it's really damn weird to call anyone who likes Background Features a grognard? As in, we've only had mechanical backgrounds for two editions, and both brought in huge swaths of new players.
I suggest you log off, take a chill pill, hug your loved ones, and go for a nice walk outdoors.
Backgrounds don't mean you're only this one thing. It means you most identify with this one thing. Arya Stark is a noble, an urchin, and an acolyte of the Many-Faced God. Beauregard Lionet is a noble, a criminal, and a member of the cobalt reserve. The paths we take in life can bring us down many directions. But, mechanically, our characters only gravitate towards one. And that's okay.
If you want something limitless and open-ended, go play Fate for its aspects.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I consider the skill, tool, and language proficiencies they offer, and generally it helps me pick a background that for a character. Since the tools and proficiencies may be secondary or even tertiary choices unlike ASI's, I can be more flexible in what I choose, allowing me to pick up both some rp skills and give some individual flavor to the character I may not have considered
I've taken the farseeker, the charlatan, OFTEN the urchin or criminal for thieves tools,(and creating a lot of complexity in at least one of my characters that leans more lawful despite a criminal past he wants to put behind him, despite the useful skills: something akin to the character in the O. Henry story about the guy with a criminal past that is the only one who can save a girl locked in a bank safe...).
The skills make these backgrounds worth taking and are a great RP teaser as is. The new backgrounds are trash because they want to force ASI's which are PRIMARY choices in character creation, which railroads characters into even worse little boxes than the species ASI's do because we all know not all orcs are barbarians, not all elves are thieves, not all tortles are wizards, etc.
This feels like it pushes background choices to be railroaded too much.
The new backgrounds aren't "railroaded" at all. They're roll-your-own. The examples are just that.
And generally, people have a character idea. If they want to have thieves' tools, they want to have thieves' tools, and if they don't want to be an urchin or a criminal, what's likely to happen is that they take the background and ignore it, except for the mechanical bits.
It's just "All characters get stat bumps, and some proficiencies and languages. Make up a little story to tie this stuff together."
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I consider the skill, tool, and language proficiencies they offer, and generally it helps me pick a background that for a character. Since the tools and proficiencies may be secondary or even tertiary choices unlike ASI's, I can be more flexible in what I choose, allowing me to pick up both some rp skills and give some individual flavor to the character I may not have considered
I've taken the farseeker, the charlatan, OFTEN the urchin or criminal for thieves tools,(and creating a lot of complexity in at least one of my characters that leans more lawful despite a criminal past he wants to put behind him, despite the useful skills: something akin to the character in the O. Henry story about the guy with a criminal past that is the only one who can save a girl locked in a bank safe...).
The skills make these backgrounds worth taking and are a great RP teaser as is. The new backgrounds are trash because they want to force ASI's which are PRIMARY choices in character creation, which railroads characters into even worse little boxes than the species ASI's do because we all know not all orcs are barbarians, not all elves are thieves, not all tortles are wizards, etc.
This feels like it pushes background choices to be railroaded too much.
The new backgrounds aren't "railroaded" at all. They're roll-your-own. The examples are just that.
And generally, people have a character idea. If they want to have thieves' tools, they want to have thieves' tools, and if they don't want to be an urchin or a criminal, what's likely to happen is that they take the background and ignore it, except for the mechanical bits.
It's just "All characters get stat bumps, and some proficiencies and languages. Make up a little story to tie this stuff together."
Now your making mother may I scenarios and situations where players make absolutely absurd batshit insane stuff up. Which is why "create your own spell" abilities are bad and 90% the homebrew section is just absurd marysue BS.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I consider the skill, tool, and language proficiencies they offer, and generally it helps me pick a background that for a character. Since the tools and proficiencies may be secondary or even tertiary choices unlike ASI's, I can be more flexible in what I choose, allowing me to pick up both some rp skills and give some individual flavor to the character I may not have considered
I've taken the farseeker, the charlatan, OFTEN the urchin or criminal for thieves tools,(and creating a lot of complexity in at least one of my characters that leans more lawful despite a criminal past he wants to put behind him, despite the useful skills: something akin to the character in the O. Henry story about the guy with a criminal past that is the only one who can save a girl locked in a bank safe...).
The skills make these backgrounds worth taking and are a great RP teaser as is. The new backgrounds are trash because they want to force ASI's which are PRIMARY choices in character creation, which railroads characters into even worse little boxes than the species ASI's do because we all know not all orcs are barbarians, not all elves are thieves, not all tortles are wizards, etc.
This feels like it pushes background choices to be railroaded too much.
The new backgrounds aren't "railroaded" at all. They're roll-your-own. The examples are just that.
And generally, people have a character idea. If they want to have thieves' tools, they want to have thieves' tools, and if they don't want to be an urchin or a criminal, what's likely to happen is that they take the background and ignore it, except for the mechanical bits.
It's just "All characters get stat bumps, and some proficiencies and languages. Make up a little story to tie this stuff together."
Now your making mother may I scenarios and situations where players make absolutely absurd batshit insane stuff up. Which is why "create your own spell" abilities are bad and 90% the homebrew section is just absurd marysue BS.
They really aren't, and nobody's going to stop you from sliding down that slope all on your own.
Now your making mother may I scenarios and situations where players make absolutely absurd batshit insane stuff up. Which is why "create your own spell" abilities are bad and 90% the homebrew section is just absurd marysue BS.
It used to be "mother may I?" but now you just get to build it (the background) to match what you want.
Almost like "make people game their background" was a bad idea. Now it's a fun wrapper around "pick a feat and some proficiencies outside your class."
Now your making mother may I scenarios and situations where players make absolutely absurd batshit insane stuff up. Which is why "create your own spell" abilities are bad and 90% the homebrew section is just absurd marysue BS.
It used to be "mother may I?" but now you just get to build it (the background) to match what you want.
Almost like "make people game their background" was a bad idea. Now it's a fun wrapper around "pick a feat and some proficiencies outside your class."
I don't know how explicitly stating you get x,y, and z is "mother may I" in the current official, and yet this "build whatever you want" is not.
I don't know how explicitly stating you get x,y, and z is "mother may I" in the current official, and yet this "build whatever you want" is not.
"Mother may I" means the player needs to beg/cajole/coerce their DM for something, they cannot simply do it. In the case of 2014 Backgrounds, background customization is strictly prohibited in all but the most desperate of edge cases - as has been covered extensively in the first thirteen pages of this thread you have clearly opted not to read before retreading all the same ground that's already been fought over - and even if background customization is allowed, it requires extensive DM buy-in and homebrew to make work.
The One D&D Origins document, before certain people in this thread complained about losing pointless ribbon features they could've just put on their sheets anyways hard enough to get the document thrown out, says "this is the package of mechanical benefits your background provides. Decide which ones you want, then figure out a story explaining why you picked these options." As I said in the very first post of this thread you very clearly did not read at all, the 'Sample' backgrounds from the Origins document were not ever meant to be taken as untouchable, unchangeable, etched-in-titanium Eternal Forever backgrounds the way the 2014 backgrounds are, which is the only reason I can comprehend why you'd be complaining about fixed ASIs. They were meant to simply be a collection of examples of how the background construction rules worked, and a pool of templates available for people who cannot be assed to make their own background for whatever reason.
I don't know how explicitly stating you get x,y, and z is "mother may I" in the current official, and yet this "build whatever you want" is not.
"Mother may I" means the player needs to beg/cajole/coerce their DM for something, they cannot simply do it. In the case of 2014 Backgrounds, background customization is strictly prohibited in all but the most desperate of edge cases ...
I'll cut you off there.
Customize anything and you run into dm fiat. Customization is homebrew, flat out.
Define it explicitly and you have a case to argue RAW and the DM is stuck having to justify why THEY are the ones saying no to RAW.
Customize anything and you run into dm fiat. Customization is homebrew, flat out.
Define it explicitly and you have a case to argue RAW and the DM is stuck having to justify why THEY are the ones saying no to RAW.
Then why are you arguing with me?!
I have NO IDEA what your point even is. This quote sounds like you're in favor of the Origins document that explicitly lays out RAW rules for building custom backgrounds (no Kotath, the 2014 release does no such thing and never has), but you came in here swinging about skill, tool, and language proficiencies like they somehow stopped existing and complaining about "Forced ASIs". There ARE no "forced ASIs". You can freely change the ASI allocation on any background, RAW. It's why I made the point that you clearly didn't read the thread, and now I'm convinced you didn't read the Origins document, either.
Also, because important point: the DM doesn't have to justify shit. They're entitled to discard RAW as they please, though a good DM does so with reason and informs players about it. Which is exactly the same thing someone's supposed to do with customization - reasonably and letting people know. The DM is not, however, shackled by RAW any more than the players are. Unless you play Adventurer's League, which you really shouldn't do.
Customize anything and you run into dm fiat. Customization is homebrew, flat out.
Define it explicitly and you have a case to argue RAW and the DM is stuck having to justify why THEY are the ones saying no to RAW.
Then why are you arguing with me?!
I have NO IDEA what your point even is. This quote sounds like you're in favor of the Origins document that explicitly lays out RAW rules for building custom backgrounds (no Kotath, the 2014 release does no such thing and never has), but you came in here swinging about skill, tool, and language proficiencies like they somehow stopped existing and complaining about "Forced ASIs". There ARE no "forced ASIs". You can freely change the ASI allocation on any background, RAW. It's why I made the point that you clearly didn't read the thread, and now I'm convinced you didn't read the Origins document, either.
Also, because important point: the DM doesn't have to justify shit. They're entitled to discard RAW as they please, though a good DM does so with reason and informs players about it. Which is exactly the same thing someone's supposed to do with customization - reasonably and letting people know. The DM is not, however, shackled by RAW any more than the players are. Unless you play Adventurer's League, which you really shouldn't do.
Look, you're right. Nobody is really shackled by rules as written but home brew is home brew. It's generally not accepted from table to table. Rules as written are. It's like house rules for a board game. Everyone's got their own house rules like money on free parking (how much or what goes there varies from house to house so there's no consistency), except you're going to.someone else's table (house) and as a guest, demanding they play by your rules and customs.
There's also house rules that sometimes discard rules. But generally house rules are additive. Rules as written are generally accepted. Your homebrew background is not. They give a crap ton of examples with their ASI's and the whole point to the topic is to point out generally interpreted rules are "wrong" when clearly people are defaulting to the examples as though they are RAW.
My point is, for a lot of tables, what those examples are is going to be RAW and what is going to be given through the DDB app, and what you are claiming is the real deal is going to be relegated to homebrew, which is not going to be accepted very well because it's homebrew.
And if this doesn't work for you consider the custom lineage that's built into the system as well as perfectly legal. How often does that get used? How often does that fly for DM's?
I don't know how explicitly stating you get x,y, and z is "mother may I" in the current official, and yet this "build whatever you want" is not.
"Mother may I" means the player needs to beg/cajole/coerce their DM for something, they cannot simply do it. In the case of 2014 Backgrounds, background customization is strictly prohibited in all but the most desperate of edge cases - as has been covered extensively in the first thirteen pages of this thread you have clearly opted not to read before retreading all the same ground that's already been fought over - and even if background customization is allowed, it requires extensive DM buy-in and homebrew to make work.
The One D&D Origins document, before certain people in this thread complained about losing pointless ribbon features they could've just put on their sheets anyways hard enough to get the document thrown out, says "this is the package of mechanical benefits your background provides. Decide which ones you want, then figure out a story explaining why you picked these options." As I said in the very first post of this thread you very clearly did not read at all, the 'Sample' backgrounds from the Origins document were not ever meant to be taken as untouchable, unchangeable, etched-in-titanium Eternal Forever backgrounds the way the 2014 backgrounds are, which is the only reason I can comprehend why you'd be complaining about fixed ASIs. They were meant to simply be a collection of examples of how the background construction rules worked, and a pool of templates available for people who cannot be assed to make their own background for whatever reason.
I know it's a bit of a joke that people haven't read the DMG, but have you actually read the Player's Handbook?
Because customizing backgrounds isn't even a sidebar. It's right there with its own subheading. I can link to it on this website, and you can create your own using the tools here. These are player-facing rules. They don't require the DM to "buy in" because the expectation for the players is they are allowed to just do it. The only time it even suggests talking to the DM about it is when an existing feature doesn't line up with what you're looking for. That's when you collaborate to come up with something.
Heck, even when Adventurer's League still limited players to "PH + 1", backgrounds were never limited. If you wanted to play through the Tomb of Annihilation campaign with the Haunted One background from Curse of Strahd, or one of the others from SCAG, it was 100% legal.
Nothing is etched-in-titanum; literally or metaphorically. I find it deeply ironic you're accusing others of not reading.
EDIT: well, the website made a hash of that formatting. DOing the best I can to fix it, I suppose. Dear ******* GAWD I hate this website's horrible quote system...
<blockquote>Quote from Bob_the_fish12 >> ... My point is, for a lot of tables, what those examples are is going to be RAW and what is going to be given through the DDB app, and what you are claiming is the real deal is going to be relegated to homebrew, which is not going to be accepted very well because it's homebrew. ... And if this doesn't work for you consider the custom lineage that's built into the system as well as perfectly legal. How often does that get used? How often does that fly for DM's? </blockquote>
Utterly and categorically incorrect. When the 2024 redux books drop, DDB will absolutely support whatever the new method of generating characte4r backgrounds is, and if the Origins document somehow miraculously survived the Internet's absolute seething hatred for literally anything new, they will be FORCED to provide more robust tools for background customization. This is not negotiable. This is not "side RAW that doesn't count". Custom-grown, or custom-tuned, backgrounds are the expected and primary norm for One D&D. The website's current shitty, terrible, and barely half-functional background customizer system will need to be scrapped and replaced with something that works. Custom Lineage is unpopular with DMs not because it allows for custom assemblage of a basic set of low-value species traits.
Custom Lineage is unpopular with DMs because players try to use it to justify playing floating sentient panties, an awakened box of oranges, the back half of a dead draft horse while their buddy plays the front half of the horse, or any number of other farcical cockamamie nonsense "characters" that have no damn place in any for-real game of D&D. The actual trait package itself is so mild as to be utterly unremarkable, which is half its problem. Custom Lineage is boring. It doesn't let you play anything truly unique, because you'll have the same basic traits as about three quarters of all the other species in D&D. Every DM I've ever played with - and myself, with my DM Hat on - will always be willing to homebrew a species statblock rather than deal with Custom Lineage. It's easier and better.
I know it's a bit of a joke that people haven't read the DMG, but have you actually read the Player's Handbook?
Because customizing backgrounds isn't even a sidebar. It's right there with its own subheading. I can link to it on this website, and you can create your own using the tools here. These are player-facing rules. They don't require the DM to "buy in" because the expectation for the players is they are allowed to just do it. The only time it even suggests talking to the DM about it is when an existing feature doesn't line up with what you're looking for. That's when you collaborate to come up with something.
Heck, even when Adventurer's League still limited players to "PH + 1", backgrounds were never limited. If you wanted to play through the Tomb of Annihilation campaign with the Haunted One background from Curse of Strahd, or one of the others from SCAG, it was 100% legal.
Nothing is etched-in-titanum; literally or metaphorically. I find it deeply ironic you're accusing others of not reading.
Yes, I have read the Player's Handbook. The section on customizing your background is one single throwaway paragraph at the very end of the Background rules, and it assumes you're only slightly modifying an existing background rather than creating one from scratch. Note that it says "You can either use the equipment package from your background..." or spend coin per your class rules, despite the fact that a truly custom background would have no equipment package to use. So yes, custom backgrounds lose out on ALL background equipment unless they're extremely minor modifications of existing backgrounds. Notre that their two running example characters, Tika and Artemis, do not customize or modify their backgrounds in any way and simply run with unmodified stock backgrounds, despite your and Kotath's constant assertions that customizing 2014 backgrounds is "normal and expected."
No, it is not. Customizing a background is a single throwaway paragraph that only just barely made it into the book, an absolute minimum of guidance is provided for doing so, the rules explicitly expect you to give up all your background equipment, and creating a new background feature is given one sentence. With absolutely no guidance whatsoever on how to do so. The PHB clearly, obviously, and inarguably expects players to use completely unmodified stock backgrounds and discourages players from customizing backgrounds because it makes the background customization rules minimal, incomplete, and very easy to miss. And anyone who actually cares about the sort of customization the Origins document gave us can plainly and obviously see that. Ergo, people who make this argument that "the book already lets you customize your backgrounds" are simply being deliberately obtuse and arguing from bad faith to try and sabotage the Origins rules and get them thrown out.
As others are saying, you keep repeating that as a mantra. It does not make it so. There are DM's out there who go strict letter of the rules, but vaguer rules are not going to keep them from being strict. Most DM's and any really good DM is nowhere near so hard line.
A permissible DM is not necessarily a good one. In fact part of learning to be a DM is knowing where and when to be restrictive and when not to be.
Personally I'm fairly permissible but I'm against home brew because it's the easiest way to screw up mechanics and balance.
Too often players forget they aren't the dm, and not the arbiter of the rules.
Unlike the 2014 "rules", which more or less state "if you don't like the standard backgrounds and want to do something custom like a nerd, homebrew shit."
The Origin rules were better for people who hate homebrew. They unified backgrounds and made them easier for DMs to get behind, because there was significantly less disparity between the various "Standard" backgrounds. They made backgrounds better, for everybody. Right up until screeching angry yaybos - permit me to spend a moment to glare back at the history of this thread - put up such a caterwaul the document got thrown out.
Per the origins UA document, custom backgrounds will not only be RAW, but be the default option. The listed examples will just be examples. It's the single best decision they've made for One D&D.
And I haven't seen anything (written) that overrides it, so I assume it's still "in." But I don't watch the videos.
Unlike the 2014 "rules", which more or less state "if you don't like the standard backgrounds and want to do something custom like a nerd, homebrew shit."
The Origin rules were better for people who hate homebrew. They unified backgrounds and made them easier for DMs to get behind, because there was significantly less disparity between the various "Standard" backgrounds. They made backgrounds better, for everybody. Right up until screeching angry yaybos - permit me to spend a moment to glare back at the history of this thread - put up such a caterwaul the document got thrown out.
Again: yay.
You only have to "homebrew shit" if there's no background feature which interests you.
And the only person saying the Origins have been thrown out is you. Care to back that assertion up with something?
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I think that requiring a feature written in to allow narrative things like association with a particular faction with no other benefit sets a bad precedent. Those things should be just hashed out with the DM as part of the back story. Mechanical features should be mechanical features and narrative features should be narrative features. I like that there is a clear delineation between discrete mechanical packages like Feats and the "write your own freeform" bits. I think having Background features be Feats accomplishes that.
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'm sorry, but you're wrong. I consider the skill, tool, and language proficiencies they offer, and generally it helps me pick a background that for a character. Since the tools and proficiencies may be secondary or even tertiary choices unlike ASI's, I can be more flexible in what I choose, allowing me to pick up both some rp skills and give some individual flavor to the character I may not have considered.
I've taken the farseeker, the charlatan, OFTEN the urchin or criminal for thieves tools,(and creating a lot of complexity in at least one of my characters that leans more lawful despite a criminal past he wants to put behind him, despite the useful skills: something akin to the character in the O. Henry story about the guy with a criminal past that is the only one who can save a girl locked in a bank safe...).
The skills make these backgrounds worth taking and are a great RP teaser as is. The new backgrounds are trash because they want to force ASI's which are PRIMARY choices in character creation, which railroads characters into even worse little boxes than the species ASI's do because we all know not all orcs are barbarians, not all elves are thieves, not all tortles are wizards, etc.
This feels like it pushes background choices to be railroaded too much.
EDIT: Crap. Grabbed the wrong quote initially. Tried to fix it.
Can I just say it's really damn weird to call anyone who likes Background Features a grognard? As in, we've only had mechanical backgrounds for two editions, and both brought in huge swaths of new players.
I suggest you log off, take a chill pill, hug your loved ones, and go for a nice walk outdoors.
Backgrounds don't mean you're only this one thing. It means you most identify with this one thing. Arya Stark is a noble, an urchin, and an acolyte of the Many-Faced God. Beauregard Lionet is a noble, a criminal, and a member of the cobalt reserve. The paths we take in life can bring us down many directions. But, mechanically, our characters only gravitate towards one. And that's okay.
If you want something limitless and open-ended, go play Fate for its aspects.
The new backgrounds aren't "railroaded" at all. They're roll-your-own. The examples are just that.
And generally, people have a character idea. If they want to have thieves' tools, they want to have thieves' tools, and if they don't want to be an urchin or a criminal, what's likely to happen is that they take the background and ignore it, except for the mechanical bits.
It's just "All characters get stat bumps, and some proficiencies and languages. Make up a little story to tie this stuff together."
Now your making mother may I scenarios and situations where players make absolutely absurd batshit insane stuff up. Which is why "create your own spell" abilities are bad and 90% the homebrew section is just absurd marysue BS.
They really aren't, and nobody's going to stop you from sliding down that slope all on your own.
It used to be "mother may I?" but now you just get to build it (the background) to match what you want.
Almost like "make people game their background" was a bad idea. Now it's a fun wrapper around "pick a feat and some proficiencies outside your class."
I don't know how explicitly stating you get x,y, and z is "mother may I" in the current official, and yet this "build whatever you want" is not.
"Mother may I" means the player needs to beg/cajole/coerce their DM for something, they cannot simply do it. In the case of 2014 Backgrounds, background customization is strictly prohibited in all but the most desperate of edge cases - as has been covered extensively in the first thirteen pages of this thread you have clearly opted not to read before retreading all the same ground that's already been fought over - and even if background customization is allowed, it requires extensive DM buy-in and homebrew to make work.
The One D&D Origins document, before certain people in this thread complained about losing pointless ribbon features they could've just put on their sheets anyways hard enough to get the document thrown out, says "this is the package of mechanical benefits your background provides. Decide which ones you want, then figure out a story explaining why you picked these options." As I said in the very first post of this thread you very clearly did not read at all, the 'Sample' backgrounds from the Origins document were not ever meant to be taken as untouchable, unchangeable, etched-in-titanium Eternal Forever backgrounds the way the 2014 backgrounds are, which is the only reason I can comprehend why you'd be complaining about fixed ASIs. They were meant to simply be a collection of examples of how the background construction rules worked, and a pool of templates available for people who cannot be assed to make their own background for whatever reason.
Please do not contact or message me.
Did they say which parts of the origins UA they were keeping or tossing? Was it in one of the recap videos?
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'll cut you off there.
Customize anything and you run into dm fiat. Customization is homebrew, flat out.
Define it explicitly and you have a case to argue RAW and the DM is stuck having to justify why THEY are the ones saying no to RAW.
Then why are you arguing with me?!
I have NO IDEA what your point even is. This quote sounds like you're in favor of the Origins document that explicitly lays out RAW rules for building custom backgrounds (no Kotath, the 2014 release does no such thing and never has), but you came in here swinging about skill, tool, and language proficiencies like they somehow stopped existing and complaining about "Forced ASIs". There ARE no "forced ASIs". You can freely change the ASI allocation on any background, RAW. It's why I made the point that you clearly didn't read the thread, and now I'm convinced you didn't read the Origins document, either.
Also, because important point: the DM doesn't have to justify shit. They're entitled to discard RAW as they please, though a good DM does so with reason and informs players about it. Which is exactly the same thing someone's supposed to do with customization - reasonably and letting people know. The DM is not, however, shackled by RAW any more than the players are. Unless you play Adventurer's League, which you really shouldn't do.
Please do not contact or message me.
Look, you're right. Nobody is really shackled by rules as written but home brew is home brew. It's generally not accepted from table to table. Rules as written are. It's like house rules for a board game. Everyone's got their own house rules like money on free parking (how much or what goes there varies from house to house so there's no consistency), except you're going to.someone else's table (house) and as a guest, demanding they play by your rules and customs.
There's also house rules that sometimes discard rules. But generally house rules are additive. Rules as written are generally accepted. Your homebrew background is not. They give a crap ton of examples with their ASI's and the whole point to the topic is to point out generally interpreted rules are "wrong" when clearly people are defaulting to the examples as though they are RAW.
My point is, for a lot of tables, what those examples are is going to be RAW and what is going to be given through the DDB app, and what you are claiming is the real deal is going to be relegated to homebrew, which is not going to be accepted very well because it's homebrew.
And if this doesn't work for you consider the custom lineage that's built into the system as well as perfectly legal. How often does that get used? How often does that fly for DM's?
I know it's a bit of a joke that people haven't read the DMG, but have you actually read the Player's Handbook?
Because customizing backgrounds isn't even a sidebar. It's right there with its own subheading. I can link to it on this website, and you can create your own using the tools here. These are player-facing rules. They don't require the DM to "buy in" because the expectation for the players is they are allowed to just do it. The only time it even suggests talking to the DM about it is when an existing feature doesn't line up with what you're looking for. That's when you collaborate to come up with something.
Heck, even when Adventurer's League still limited players to "PH + 1", backgrounds were never limited. If you wanted to play through the Tomb of Annihilation campaign with the Haunted One background from Curse of Strahd, or one of the others from SCAG, it was 100% legal.
Nothing is etched-in-titanum; literally or metaphorically. I find it deeply ironic you're accusing others of not reading.
EDIT: well, the website made a hash of that formatting. DOing the best I can to fix it, I suppose. Dear ******* GAWD I hate this website's horrible quote system...
<blockquote>Quote from Bob_the_fish12 >> ... My point is, for a lot of tables, what those examples are is going to be RAW and what is going to be given through the DDB app, and what you are claiming is the real deal is going to be relegated to homebrew, which is not going to be accepted very well because it's homebrew. ... And if this doesn't work for you consider the custom lineage that's built into the system as well as perfectly legal. How often does that get used? How often does that fly for DM's?
</blockquote>
Utterly and categorically incorrect. When the 2024 redux books drop, DDB will absolutely support whatever the new method of generating characte4r backgrounds is, and if the Origins document somehow miraculously survived the Internet's absolute seething hatred for literally anything new, they will be FORCED to provide more robust tools for background customization. This is not negotiable. This is not "side RAW that doesn't count". Custom-grown, or custom-tuned, backgrounds are the expected and primary norm for One D&D. The website's current shitty, terrible, and barely half-functional background customizer system will need to be scrapped and replaced with something that works. Custom Lineage is unpopular with DMs not because it allows for custom assemblage of a basic set of low-value species traits.
Custom Lineage is unpopular with DMs because players try to use it to justify playing floating sentient panties, an awakened box of oranges, the back half of a dead draft horse while their buddy plays the front half of the horse, or any number of other farcical cockamamie nonsense "characters" that have no damn place in any for-real game of D&D. The actual trait package itself is so mild as to be utterly unremarkable, which is half its problem. Custom Lineage is boring. It doesn't let you play anything truly unique, because you'll have the same basic traits as about three quarters of all the other species in D&D. Every DM I've ever played with - and myself, with my DM Hat on - will always be willing to homebrew a species statblock rather than deal with Custom Lineage. It's easier and better.
Yes, I have read the Player's Handbook. The section on customizing your background is one single throwaway paragraph at the very end of the Background rules, and it assumes you're only slightly modifying an existing background rather than creating one from scratch. Note that it says "You can either use the equipment package from your background..." or spend coin per your class rules, despite the fact that a truly custom background would have no equipment package to use. So yes, custom backgrounds lose out on ALL background equipment unless they're extremely minor modifications of existing backgrounds. Notre that their two running example characters, Tika and Artemis, do not customize or modify their backgrounds in any way and simply run with unmodified stock backgrounds, despite your and Kotath's constant assertions that customizing 2014 backgrounds is "normal and expected."
No, it is not. Customizing a background is a single throwaway paragraph that only just barely made it into the book, an absolute minimum of guidance is provided for doing so, the rules explicitly expect you to give up all your background equipment, and creating a new background feature is given one sentence. With absolutely no guidance whatsoever on how to do so. The PHB clearly, obviously, and inarguably expects players to use completely unmodified stock backgrounds and discourages players from customizing backgrounds because it makes the background customization rules minimal, incomplete, and very easy to miss. And anyone who actually cares about the sort of customization the Origins document gave us can plainly and obviously see that. Ergo, people who make this argument that "the book already lets you customize your backgrounds" are simply being deliberately obtuse and arguing from bad faith to try and sabotage the Origins rules and get them thrown out.
No middle ground.
Please do not contact or message me.
The only one I've seen draw a line in the proverbial sand, Yurei, is you. If your goal is to truly put out fires, there are better ways.
A permissible DM is not necessarily a good one. In fact part of learning to be a DM is knowing where and when to be restrictive and when not to be.
Personally I'm fairly permissible but I'm against home brew because it's the easiest way to screw up mechanics and balance.
Too often players forget they aren't the dm, and not the arbiter of the rules.
The Origin customization rules were not homebrew.
Unlike the 2014 "rules", which more or less state "if you don't like the standard backgrounds and want to do something custom like a nerd, homebrew shit."
The Origin rules were better for people who hate homebrew. They unified backgrounds and made them easier for DMs to get behind, because there was significantly less disparity between the various "Standard" backgrounds. They made backgrounds better, for everybody. Right up until screeching angry yaybos - permit me to spend a moment to glare back at the history of this thread - put up such a caterwaul the document got thrown out.
Again: yay.
Please do not contact or message me.
Per the origins UA document, custom backgrounds will not only be RAW, but be the default option. The listed examples will just be examples. It's the single best decision they've made for One D&D.
And I haven't seen anything (written) that overrides it, so I assume it's still "in." But I don't watch the videos.
You only have to "homebrew shit" if there's no background feature which interests you.
And the only person saying the Origins have been thrown out is you. Care to back that assertion up with something?