If your point was, "This needs context, but I'm going to intentionally omit it to trap someone," then you don't actually have a point.
i attempted to pen an unbiased situation so we could evaluate a feature. you added context and called it bad from that context. i didn't expect to see you hanging upside down above my big red 'X,' but here we are.
since i have you... why are you reframing this instead of addressing whether you're fighting to keep the feature abilities as rules or whether you're more interested in the lore text as a tool which might possibly be reduced and finished diminished in 5e revised?
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
Nor is it any sort of hard coded computer game where options and outcomes are limited by needing to be pre-programmed. It is a game played with live players and a live DM, all capable of creative and cognitive thought and from day 1 has been built on the concept of creative flexibility.
Ok, and I'm not disagreeing with any of that. I just think the UA rules do a better job of supporting that creativity than the 2014 rules do. I feel like the 2014 Background Features actually seem more hard coded than the UA rules.
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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!
If your point was, "This needs context, but I'm going to intentionally omit it to trap someone," then you don't actually have a point.
i attempted to pen an unbiased situation so we could evaluate a feature. you added context and called it bad from that context. i didn't expect to see you hanging upside down above my big red 'X,' but here we are.
since i have you... why are you reframing this instead of addressing whether you're fighting to keep the feature abilities as rules or whether you're more interested in the lore text as a tool which might possibly be reduced and finished diminished in 5e revised?
I think I'm going to have to spell this out for you, because your reading comprehension is rubbish.
You don't have what you don't have. This applies to species traits, class features, and everything else in game terms you can think of. The charlatan's False Identity is not the same as the noble's Position of Privilege, and it doesn't let them simply duplicate any other background feature. You should know this. A DM who lets them is, in my estimation, giving them far too much. Personally, the actual noble doesn't need to roll. People know who they are because they're either heard of them or their family. But the charlatan? They're always faking it until they make it. They need to roll, and they're rolling Charisma (Deception). That's the point.
I've already said my piece on how these features exist to (a) help move the adventure along and (b) inspire players to take a more proactive role. If that can be done with less text, and I don't see why not, then great. Once again, the information doesn't need to be conveyed as it currently is. But it should be there because new players can benefit. Hell, experienced players can benefit if they give it a chance. We aren't all riveting storytellers or theatre kids who grew up.
Nor is it any sort of hard coded computer game where options and outcomes are limited by needing to be pre-programmed. It is a game played with live players and a live DM, all capable of creative and cognitive thought and from day 1 has been built on the concept of creative flexibility.
Ok, and I'm not disagreeing with any of that. I just think the UA rules do a better job of supporting that creativity than the 2014 rules do. I feel like the 2014 Background Features actually seem more hard coded than the UA rules.
They may seem more hard coded, but rather than blocking me as a DM, I see each and every one of them as a plot hook that I can work with, especially with any given player that really buys into them.
And I most definitely work with players with respect to their own personal takes on them.
A compromise could be to reduce the number of examples given or to give a good example of building one from scratch as a DM, but I still maintain that they add to the game rather than detract from it.
And most of the arguments I see against them seem to be either "DM's are too strict with them" (ignoring that strict DMs would also be strict even without them) and (and often simultaneously from the same opponent, despite the contradiction) "Players misuse them!" (ignoring, again, that players who are that good at fast talking a DM will still be that good at fast talking a DM without them)
My argument would basically boil down to, "The UA rules are better designed in a way that encompasses the 2014 rules and also makes them obsolete."
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!
Nor is it any sort of hard coded computer game where options and outcomes are limited by needing to be pre-programmed. It is a game played with live players and a live DM, all capable of creative and cognitive thought and from day 1 has been built on the concept of creative flexibility.
Ok, and I'm not disagreeing with any of that. I just think the UA rules do a better job of supporting that creativity than the 2014 rules do. I feel like the 2014 Background Features actually seem more hard coded than the UA rules.
They may seem more hard coded, but rather than blocking me as a DM, I see each and every one of them as a plot hook that I can work with, especially with any given player that really buys into them.
And I most definitely work with players with respect to their own personal takes on them.
A compromise could be to reduce the number of examples given or to give a good example of building one from scratch as a DM, but I still maintain that they add to the game rather than detract from it.
And most of the arguments I see against them seem to be either "DM's are too strict with them" (ignoring that strict DMs would also be strict even without them) and (and often simultaneously from the same opponent, despite the contradiction) "Players misuse them!" (ignoring, again, that players who are that good at fast talking a DM will still be that good at fast talking a DM without them)
My argument would basically boil down to, "The UA rules are better designed in a way that encompasses the 2014 rules and also makes them obsolete."
How?
The UA replaces an evocative feature with a feat that can easily be substituted with another feat; none are more meaningful than another. Everything besides the two skills, the tool, the language, and the 50 gp of items is pure flavor text. Nothing about acolyte and entertainer say anything about finding a roof over your head in exchange for services. Sages now are just hungry for knowledge, not that they know where to find obscure lore. Sailor omits everything about booking passage in exchange for work.
Please, explain how this minimalist approach encompasses everything from 2014 and then some.
If your point was, "This needs context, but I'm going to intentionally omit it to trap someone," then you don't actually have a point.
i attempted to pen an unbiased situation so we could evaluate a feature. you added context and called it bad from that context. i didn't expect to see you hanging upside down above my big red 'X,' but here we are.
since i have you... why are you reframing this instead of addressing whether you're fighting to keep the feature abilities as rules or whether you're more interested in the lore text as a tool which might possibly be reduced and finished diminished in 5e revised?
I think I'm going to have to spell this out for you, because your reading comprehension is rubbish.
You don't have what you don't have. This applies to species traits, class features, and everything else in game terms you can think of. The charlatan's False Identity is not the same as the noble's Position of Privilege, and it doesn't let them simply duplicate any other background feature. You should know this. A DM who lets them is, in my estimation, giving them far too much. Personally, the actual noble doesn't need to roll. People know who they are because they're either heard of them or their family. But the charlatan? They're always faking it until they make it. They need to roll, and they're rolling Charisma (Deception). That's the point.
I've already said my piece on how these features exist to (a) help move the adventure along and (b) inspire players to take a more proactive role. If that can be done with less text, and I don't see why not, then great. Once again, the information doesn't need to be conveyed as it currently is. But it should be there because new players can benefit. Hell, experienced players can benefit if they give it a chance. We aren't all riveting storytellers or theatre kids who grew up.
wait wait wait, you said you didn't understand the stifling effect that yurei seems to feel from the 2014 5e background features. and now i believe you. chalk that one up to me assuming our reading comprehension skills were on the same level. oof. "you only have what you have," is that right? so, if one background includes this power, other persons without this background could not do it. so the noble can borrow a horse from the yokels without a check but not the charlatan posing as a noble? no way. if there is a chance of failure, one background should not be exempt from failure. if failure is not an option (or not interesting) in the moment, then either the feat is useless in that moment or else the feat power is applicable to all backgrounds in that moment.
look, new example: the soldier's feature doesn't say they can train farmers to resist bandit raids. however, if that were a feature then such a scenario would likely pop up in more games (representative of background features being a tool for role play and plot, as you say). however, since the variable will have been identified and named, no party running the same campaign without a soldier background character could claim to do the same. they will not have what they do not have.
my whole point is to say that these plot coupons, these background features, these custom-official exclusive feats sound more like plot hooks and story ideas than powers. it doesn't matter if i sound like a beep boop computer man when i strive to explain things clearly, the fact remains: a feat/feature is a rule of the game and a rule in the rule book has the expectation of being followed. yes, even in a rule-bendy role playing game. remove the "feature" status and then it is not offensive that some plot hooks exist. if someone wanted to stop me from sounding like a logic-gates and function-blocks guy, then moving these things outside the realm of rules would be a quick way to disarm me. still in the book! just not as rules.
My argument would basically boil down to, "The UA rules are better designed in a way that encompasses the 2014 rules and also makes them obsolete."
Whereas mine boil down to "The 2014 background features are far deeper and thus far more meaningful than the 1st level feats, while not being incompatible with them.
I can see that, but I think the meaning part of the Background Feature more properly and usefully belongs in the Write-Your-Own section of a character. Because the 2014 Background Features are written with only one Background in mind, they are narrowly evocative for that one concept and it chafes to have to bend something that is already set into one idea rather than to have mechanics for which you can explicitly write your own theme and meaning.
My argument would basically boil down to, "The UA rules are better designed in a way that encompasses the 2014 rules and also makes them obsolete."
How?
The UA replaces an evocative feature with a feat that can easily be substituted with another feat; none are more meaningful than another. Everything besides the two skills, the tool, the language, and the 50 gp of items is pure flavor text.
Yes, but see the "evocative" part of the character more properly belongs in that "flavor text" section and not muddying up the mechanical part.
Nothing about acolyte and entertainer say anything about finding a roof over your head in exchange for services. Sages now are just hungry for knowledge, not that they know where to find obscure lore. Sailor omits everything about booking passage in exchange for work.
Please, explain how this minimalist approach encompasses everything from 2014 and then some.
Because it allows the 2014 Backgrounds to be built, in essence, but also more easily allows customization.
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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!
The argument against "Features", generally, seems to be "these are freebie plot coupons that, RAW, work even when they make no sense. That's not great, and there's no benefit to these things being Rules rather than just guidelines on how to work with the DM."
The counter-argument seems to be "if the DM and players both do their jobs, the Plot Coupons will never not make sense."
That's the crux of our argument - if you do the work, the Plot Coupon is entirely unnecessary. There's no reason to make it a rule that your Noble can gain an audience with Important Personages regardless of anything else if you spend twenty minutes hashing our your noble title with the DM. They'll know whether you can gain an audience with any given VIP without needing to be smacked across the jowls with the Plot Coupon. They'll know if you get it For Free(TM), if you need to roll for it or offer some sort of tribute, or if you're gonna have to work as hard as any non-noble to get it - or if your noble status is a bar to gaining access to a specific VIP, rather than a Plot Coupon freebie.
There's no depth the Plot Coupon buys that isn't handled by a short conversation between player and DM, and the idea that the Plot Coupons "make sure the game can continue" is dumb. What if the players just so happen to not have the one single Plot Coupon they need to progress from their latest ****-up? The DM's gonna have to figure something out regardless, the Plot Coupon system is not remotely a guarantee they can "save" their game.
And if you do not do the work? Well, why should the DM give a shit about your Plot Coupon if they don't give a shit about your background - or if you don't give a shit about your background? If you're not willing to have that twenty-minute conversation prior to a two-year game, what makes you think the Plot Coupon entitles you to the benefits of having done the work?
Again - arguing that there should be more page space devoted to guiding players and DMs towards having those conversations is fine. That's a worthwhile goal. But the Plot Coupons do not steer people towards those conversations. At all. They prevent those conversations more than they facilitate them, because the player can just point to the coupon on their sheet and say "I have a Plot Coupon, gimme my freebie" without ever having to talk to the DM about what their Plot Coupon might mean. They don't need to do the work to gain the benefit that's supposed to come from the work, so why should they bother with the work?
WHYdo we need to waste 20+ pages of the new book on Plot Coupons and entirely discard the objectively better chargen rules from Origins? You've never once given any sort of answer other thasn "they help roleplaying" oir "they're deeper than boring crappy mechanical feats."
1.) They do dick monkey bupkis to 'Help Roleplaying'. A player who's going to think about his character's background, history, and connections will do that no matter what his Plot Coupon tells him to do. A a player who is not inclined to do those things will not do them because their Plot Coupon says they should. they'll just point to the Plot Coupon and say "the book says I get freebies, give them to me." No roleplaying is "encouraged" by these bad rules.
2.) Similarly, there is no "depth" in these Plot Coupons that isn't handled by feats. Can a feat be nothing but a 'boring' package of mechanical abilities? Sure. Can a player instead derive deep meaning from their choice of feat and hook the mechanical abilities that feat provides into a rich narrative for their character? Also sure. Somebody earlier asked how the Musician feat is a 'boring flavorless mechanical nothing' when it's there to allow you to prove in the rules of the game that you're a splendid musician. Can someone just say "I use Inspiring Song, everybody gets Inspiration"? Yes. Can someone also say "I'm a Noble, I get us an audience with the king" without doing any of the work? As per your rules, also yes. And if you say the Plot Coupon doesn't work, that they need to do some background legwork to justify using their Plot Coupon?
Then why is it presented as a Rule they are allowed to invoke whether they do the legwork you want from them or not?
WHYdo we need to waste 20+ pages of the new book on Plot Coupons and entirely discard the objectively better chargen rules from Origins? You've never once given any sort of answer other thasn "they help roleplaying" oir "they're deeper than boring crappy mechanical feats."
1.) They do dick monkey bupkis to 'Help Roleplaying'. A player who's going to think about his character's background, history, and connections will do that no matter what his Plot Coupon tells him to do. A a player who is not inclined to do those things will not do them because their Plot Coupon says they should. they'll just point to the Plot Coupon and say "the book says I get freebies, give them to me." No roleplaying is "encouraged" by these bad rules.
Subjectively better, Yurei. I know facts and opinions can look similar, and knowing he difference is a useful life skill to have. You should also know waste is a matter of perspective. People who don't want to roleplay, or otherwise act in-character, aren't going to do so no matter how many carrots you wave in their faces. Or, to put it another way...
One man's trash is another man's treasure.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
You aren't arguing from a business perspective. We can't even remotely guess as to the cost-benefit ratio of the page space. Given what we do know, your position only makes sense if enough of the player base is disinterested in roleplaying. And that reads like an indictment. Even if someone wants to roleplay, they may not know how. That's why people are upset these "plot coupons" are likely leaving. These tools don't need to be useful to you in order to be useful.
2.) Similarly, there is no "depth" in these Plot Coupons that isn't handled by feats. Can a feat be nothing but a 'boring' package of mechanical abilities? Sure. Can a player instead derive deep meaning from their choice of feat and hook the mechanical abilities that feat provides into a rich narrative for their character? Also sure. Somebody earlier asked how the Musician feat is a 'boring flavorless mechanical nothing' when it's there to allow you to prove in the rules of the game that you're a splendid musician. Can someone just say "I use Inspiring Song, everybody gets Inspiration"? Yes. Can someone also say "I'm a Noble, I get us an audience with the king" without doing any of the work? As per your rules, also yes. And if you say the Plot Coupon doesn't work, that they need to do some background legwork to justify using their Plot Coupon?
Then why is it presented as a Rule they are allowed to invoke whether they do the legwork you want from them or not?
Players who want to roleplay, who want to find that deeper meaning and have the necessary tools, will do so. The tension point here is what constitutes a necessary tool; which could be a skill they've honed or something on the page which inspires them. From where I sit, you can't seem to look past your own nose. The game is bigger than an audience of one; or however many people in this thread share your opinion. There are millions of players, and more will follow. Do we not have a moral obligation to think about them?
Or are we content with pulling up the ladder behind us?
To put this another way that you might better understand, Yurei, a Player's Handbook for a roleplaying game that doesn't address how to roleplay and apply that is little more than a "basic bonk" text of game mechanics.
You act like a twenty-page listing of Plot Coupons that push inflexibility is "addressing how to role play." It is not. Give me a week to refine and I could come up with two pages of text that do a far better job of illustrating hoe 'Role Playing' works than twenty pages of "this is how a Noble PC works in D&D Fifth Edition. If Your DM decides Nobles work differently in your game, that doesn't matter and they can get bent because THIS is how ALL Nobles work, regardless of campaign, setting, history, or circumstance. All Nobles always start with the EXACT same equipment, the EXACT same skills, and the EXACT same history, and if you don't like it you can just suffer."
That's not roleplaying. It's never been roleplaying. The Origin rules are, indeed, objectively better from a game design standpoint because they allow for much greater flexibility of creation, allow for presenting neutral points of view on backgrounds, and allow the DM to freely tailor the Origin rules to their liking in a way the 2014 Backgrounds, which are all created slpadash and haphazardly with absolutely no unifying structure or throughline between them, simply cannot be. A DM can easily use the origin rules to rattle off a pack of 'Standard for my setting' backgrounds to fit whichever fanciful narrative they wish to run, while the 2014 system would require them to spend days and days painfully untangling the whys and wherewithals of what is and is not 'allowed' in a Background.
The Origin rules are cleaner and more unified, and that means they're much easier for both DMs and players to grip, understand, and start toying around with. Maybe the DM increases starting coin up or down depending on their setting's general wealth - you can do that in origins but it's a pain in 2014. Maybe your DM introduces a bunch of new first-level feats specific to their setting for players to choose from and set their character apart within the setting - that's really easy in Origins but flat-out disallowed in 2014 outside of homebrew/houserules, since you're not allowed to give players feats and "Features" are so nebulous and poorly described/defined as to be effectively useless for serving as guidelines.
The Origins chargen rules are explained, step by step, piece by piece, and it's made clear what each step is for and why. It shows people what the system is doing and invites them, should they so desire, to alter those assumptions if they like right from the start. The 2014 "Background" system doesn't show people ****-all jack, and you can only monkey with that system and change its assumptions if you've been steeping yourself in 5e for years.
Players who want to roleplay, who want to find that deeper meaning and have the necessary tools, will do so. The tension point here is what constitutes a necessary tool; which could be a skill they've honed or something on the page which inspires them. ... a Player's Handbook for a roleplaying game that doesn't address how to roleplay and apply that is little more than a "basic bonk" text of game mechanics.
I think this is a good point, and worth making.
Thing is (to me), the 2014 background rules don't do a good job of this. Allow me to explain:
The PHB really should have a solid section on "how to integrate your character into the world/campaign", right along with all the bonds/flaws stuff and everything else. And the DMG really should have a solid page or 2 (hell, an entire chapter?) on how to integrate the PCs and the world together.
The 2014 backgrounds don't do this. The "features" we are discussing are a set of game powers. They don't work very well as examples of good character integration. They're just haphazard little hardcoded things. As it happens, they don't do a good job of being game powers, either, because they're so haphazard.
The UA origins backgrounds also don't give any new tools for character integration. Instead, they decouple the feature mechanics from the free-form narrative parts of the background, which makes those freeform parts easier for the player, and add in well-designed (well, designed as well as the feat system as a whole) mechanics for players to use.
I think it's disingenious to argue that the newer background system is removing roleplaying or character creation tools.
2014 PHB 'Backgrounds' providestwo skills, two tools or languages, starting equipment or starting wealth (variable up to 200gp), and one feat (here called a 'feature'): pick from the existing backgrounds or custom develop with dm. additionally, chose two personality traits, one ideal, one bond, and one flaw.
Origins UA 'Character Backgrounds' provide two skills,one tool proficiency, one language, starting equipment or starting wealth (50gp), and one level-1 feat. additionally, includes tasha's starting ability scores.
Q: can the 2014 backgrounds be recreated within the proposed revised rules rules? A: yes (except for reduced starting wealth)
Q: but, Traits/Ideal/Bond/Flaw is missing. what replaces that in the proposed revised edition? A: Origins UA did not include traits, but it was a (likely truncated) initial attempt bereft of final detail. those things are popular and may return. the most recent books are expected to be immediately compatible with revised edition, so if Giants includes Traits (but not ideal/bond/flaw) then that might be it going forward. this will likely not be insufficient for new players, and more experienced players can write their own (with inspiration from 2014 text and 3rd party materials). talk with your dm about what you'd like to add and why.
Q: but, Origins UA rules do not include any of the previous background-specific feats. how can 2014 backgrounds be fully recreated within the Origins UA template without those? A: if there is a revised level-1 feat that seems close, apply that to your custom background (eg, a charlatan with Actor feat for advantage passing yourself off as a different person). any 2014 background-specific feats that do not add gameplay value (such as 'advantage' or '+x to check' verbiage) can therefore be copied over wholesale as inspiration for your custom background. talk with your dm about what you'd like to add and why.
Q: the trinket/document/animal/weapon/haunting i want is not listed in Origin UA backgrounds. how can i ensure my character starts with what they need? A: you may use your starting wealth to "pre-purchase" every starting item individually if the default starting equipment was not appropriate. per the 2014 PHB, you decide how the character came by this equipment: inheritance, hand-me-down, stolen, newly store-bought, outfitted by benefactor, etc. this includes trinkets, keepsakes, and pets which might or might not have a meaningful price. the gold is a reasonable bounds for most characters, but sometimes more seem very plausible to the player. talk with your dm about what you'd like to add and why.
Q:Criminal Contacts feature cannot be replicated by purchase. how then? A: if you can't buy it at a shop, talk with your dm about what you'd like to add and why.
Q:By Popular Demand feature cannot be replicated by purchase. how then? A: privileges based upon skill should be settled in game in the moment. privileges based upon notoriety will depend entirely on plot and cannot be divorced from nor shoehorned into the story at hand. talk with your dm about what you'd like to add and why.
Q:Haunted One feature cannot be replicated by purchase. how then? A: privileges based upon your appearance may require persuasion or performance and should be settled in game in the moment. since the revised PHB is supposed to be backwards compatible with all 5e official adventures, Curse of Strahd should continue to be an eligible source of content. therefore, the custom table of trinkets would continue to apply for any table that includes Strahd among it's reference books. talk with your dm about what you'd like to add and why.
Q: will the revised edition PHB include a section on "how to integrate your character into the world/campaign"? will it include traits/ideal/bond/flaw? A: we don't know yet. the previous playtests including newest (UA8) continue to reference the Origins UA in their "how to playtest this UA" blurb up front. besides the example backgrounds, we have not seen this aspect revisited. since it likely won't include testable gameplay mechanisms and the devs have not show interest in crowdfunded grammar checking, we'll likely have to wait for release.
...feel free to add Q/A or restate this in any way that supports your particular viewpoint. we'll learn a lot about what you have to say.
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
You act like a twenty-page listing of Plot Coupons that push inflexibility is "addressing how to role play." It is not. Give me a week to refine and I could come up with two pages of text that do a far better job of illustrating hoe 'Role Playing' works than twenty pages of "this is how a Noble PC works in D&D Fifth Edition. If Your DM decides Nobles work differently in your game, that doesn't matter and they can get bent because THIS is how ALL Nobles work, regardless of campaign, setting, history, or circumstance. All Nobles always start with the EXACT same equipment, the EXACT same skills, and the EXACT same history, and if you don't like it you can just suffer."
That's not roleplaying. It's never been roleplaying. The Origin rules are, indeed, objectively better from a game design standpoint because they allow for much greater flexibility of creation, allow for presenting neutral points of view on backgrounds, and allow the DM to freely tailor the Origin rules to their liking in a way the 2014 Backgrounds, which are all created slpadash and haphazardly with absolutely no unifying structure or throughline between them, simply cannot be. A DM can easily use the origin rules to rattle off a pack of 'Standard for my setting' backgrounds to fit whichever fanciful narrative they wish to run, while the 2014 system would require them to spend days and days painfully untangling the whys and wherewithals of what is and is not 'allowed' in a Background.
The Origin rules are cleaner and more unified, and that means they're much easier for both DMs and players to grip, understand, and start toying around with. Maybe the DM increases starting coin up or down depending on their setting's general wealth - you can do that in origins but it's a pain in 2014. Maybe your DM introduces a bunch of new first-level feats specific to their setting for players to choose from and set their character apart within the setting - that's really easy in Origins but flat-out disallowed in 2014 outside of homebrew/houserules, since you're not allowed to give players feats and "Features" are so nebulous and poorly described/defined as to be effectively useless for serving as guidelines.
The Origins chargen rules are explained, step by step, piece by piece, and it's made clear what each step is for and why. It shows people what the system is doing and invites them, should they so desire, to alter those assumptions if they like right from the start. The 2014 "Background" system doesn't show people ****-all jack, and you can only monkey with that system and change its assumptions if you've been steeping yourself in 5e for years.
That is, in fact, objectively better game design.
It's a good thing the 2014 PH doesn't actually spend 20 pages on a single background. :P
Subjectively, Yurei, never objectively. If you disagree, then you demonstrably don't understand the meaning of either word. And that immediately invalidates your opinions.
Out of curiosity, how many pages do you think will be devoted to the 144 sample backgrounds in the 2024 PH?
It's a good thing the 2014 PH doesn't actually spend 20 pages on a single background. :P
You yell at me when I crack wise on your shit. Do you really want to start that circus?
Subjectively, Yurei, never objectively. If you disagree, then you demonstrably don't understand the meaning of either word. And that immediately invalidates your opinions.
"Subjective" means an experience, emotion, or reaction that is intrinsic to a single person, i.e. something they were subject to. "Objective" means something that can be empirically proven, without relying on subjective experiences that cannot be shared.
The Origins document can be empirically proven to be better game design. It's cleaner, more systemic, and more flexible, with greater options for both player and DM customization and creativity. Your subjective opinion is that the loss of Plot Coupons reduces player engagement and leads to less roleplaying and players unable to effectively learn how to roleplay. In my subjective experience (which you're always so quick to dismiss, ne? Yurei's opinions are subjective so they're worthless, but anyone else's subjective opinion is super cool!), not one single new player I've ever played with has ever used their Background Feature to Roleplay Better. I didn't do it when I started playing, neither did anyone else in my first game, no one I've ever shown how to play has used it, nobody I've talked to about the matter has used it.
Out of curiosity, how many pages do you think will be devoted to the 144 sample backgrounds in the 2024 PH?
If I were writing the book? I would include three 'Sample' backgrounds, at most, built using the new Origins rules. I would devote a page or so to stepping through the creation of an Origin's style background, piece by piece, including prompts on how to develop the idea such as "Think about where you grew up and who you grew up with, where and how you came into the profession you held before becoming an adventurer (or how you managed to get by without a profession), and what sort of impact those years had on you. If you can, discuss these ideas with your DM and ensure both of you are satisfied with your answers." The other two would be quicker versions of same, with breakdowns on how the same questions were asked but how different players came to different answers.
Rather than a vast and endless list of dry, pointless examples nobody cares about, I'd preferentially include a questionaire, a sidebar perhaps labeled Ten Questions to Answer When Creating Your Character. I'm a huge fan of Ginny D's old "Fifty Questions" YouTube video and refer to it frequently when working through a new character; I find tools like that to be much more beneficial than "here's twenty pages of random examples of stuff with absolutely no explanation whatsoever as to what they are or why any of them exist." Inviting a player to think, giving them real prompts such as direct, focused questions they can concretely answer, always produces higher quality characters and roleplaying than simply slapping someone across the jowls with an "Example" utterly devoid of explanation and saying "make something that looks like this" without any explanation whatsoever on WHY the example looks the way it does.
I'm a huge fan of Ginny D's old "Fifty Questions" YouTube video and refer to it frequently when working through a new character; I find tools like that to be much more beneficial than "here's twenty pages of random examples of stuff with absolutely no explanation whatsoever as to what they are or why any of them exist."
I've always been a fan of the "10-minute Background" model. Not sure whom to attribute it to, though...
10-minute background
Step 1: Write five things about your character’s concept, background events, or physical description. Five things that you feel are essential parts of your character. (You are of course allowed to go above five.)
Step 2: Write two goals for the character that you, the player, would like to be part of the game.
Step 3: Write two secrets about your character. One that they know, and one that you as a player know but your character doesn't, yet. The DM will then write a third secret about your character that you as a player doesn't know about.
Step 4: Write three people somehow connected with your character. Two of them are friendly, and one of them a rival or enemy.
Step 5: Write three memories, mannerisms, or quirks your character has. Give some context for what they mean or why they are like this.
I also wouldn't use a UA document, intended to playtest rules, as a summation of roleplaying advice the whole book will give. Quite literally, they are writing in shorthand to get feedback on mechanics, not review a full book.
(and to that end, I think they knocked the mechanics for backgrounds out of the park.)
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i attempted to pen an unbiased situation so we could evaluate a feature. you added context and called it bad from that context. i didn't expect to see you hanging upside down above my big red 'X,' but here we are.
since i have you... why are you reframing this instead of addressing whether you're fighting to keep the feature abilities as rules or whether you're more interested in the lore text as a tool which might possibly be reduced and finished diminished in 5e revised?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Ok, and I'm not disagreeing with any of that. I just think the UA rules do a better job of supporting that creativity than the 2014 rules do. I feel like the 2014 Background Features actually seem more hard coded than the UA rules.
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 think I'm going to have to spell this out for you, because your reading comprehension is rubbish.
You don't have what you don't have. This applies to species traits, class features, and everything else in game terms you can think of. The charlatan's False Identity is not the same as the noble's Position of Privilege, and it doesn't let them simply duplicate any other background feature. You should know this. A DM who lets them is, in my estimation, giving them far too much. Personally, the actual noble doesn't need to roll. People know who they are because they're either heard of them or their family. But the charlatan? They're always faking it until they make it. They need to roll, and they're rolling Charisma (Deception). That's the point.
I've already said my piece on how these features exist to (a) help move the adventure along and (b) inspire players to take a more proactive role. If that can be done with less text, and I don't see why not, then great. Once again, the information doesn't need to be conveyed as it currently is. But it should be there because new players can benefit. Hell, experienced players can benefit if they give it a chance. We aren't all riveting storytellers or theatre kids who grew up.
My argument would basically boil down to, "The UA rules are better designed in a way that encompasses the 2014 rules and also makes them obsolete."
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!
How?
The UA replaces an evocative feature with a feat that can easily be substituted with another feat; none are more meaningful than another. Everything besides the two skills, the tool, the language, and the 50 gp of items is pure flavor text. Nothing about acolyte and entertainer say anything about finding a roof over your head in exchange for services. Sages now are just hungry for knowledge, not that they know where to find obscure lore. Sailor omits everything about booking passage in exchange for work.
Please, explain how this minimalist approach encompasses everything from 2014 and then some.
wait wait wait, you said you didn't understand the stifling effect that yurei seems to feel from the 2014 5e background features. and now i believe you. chalk that one up to me assuming our reading comprehension skills were on the same level. oof. "you only have what you have," is that right? so, if one background includes this power, other persons without this background could not do it. so the noble can borrow a horse from the yokels without a check but not the charlatan posing as a noble? no way. if there is a chance of failure, one background should not be exempt from failure. if failure is not an option (or not interesting) in the moment, then either the feat is useless in that moment or else the feat power is applicable to all backgrounds in that moment.
look, new example: the soldier's feature doesn't say they can train farmers to resist bandit raids. however, if that were a feature then such a scenario would likely pop up in more games (representative of background features being a tool for role play and plot, as you say). however, since the variable will have been identified and named, no party running the same campaign without a soldier background character could claim to do the same. they will not have what they do not have.
my whole point is to say that
these plot coupons,these background features, these custom-official exclusive feats sound more like plot hooks and story ideas than powers. it doesn't matter if i sound like a beep boop computer man when i strive to explain things clearly, the fact remains: a feat/feature is a rule of the game and a rule in the rule book has the expectation of being followed. yes, even in a rule-bendy role playing game. remove the "feature" status and then it is not offensive that some plot hooks exist. if someone wanted to stop me from sounding like a logic-gates and function-blocks guy, then moving these things outside the realm of rules would be a quick way to disarm me. still in the book! just not as rules.unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
I can see that, but I think the meaning part of the Background Feature more properly and usefully belongs in the Write-Your-Own section of a character. Because the 2014 Background Features are written with only one Background in mind, they are narrowly evocative for that one concept and it chafes to have to bend something that is already set into one idea rather than to have mechanics for which you can explicitly write your own theme and meaning.
Yes, but see the "evocative" part of the character more properly belongs in that "flavor text" section and not muddying up the mechanical part.
Because it allows the 2014 Backgrounds to be built, in essence, but also more easily allows customization.
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!
...in an effort to prove i'm not trying to provoke or deliberately misread anybody, i've removed this post to a direct message...
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
The description and feature illustrate how to employ the skills and tools the character receives in their background.
The argument against "Features", generally, seems to be "these are freebie plot coupons that, RAW, work even when they make no sense. That's not great, and there's no benefit to these things being Rules rather than just guidelines on how to work with the DM."
The counter-argument seems to be "if the DM and players both do their jobs, the Plot Coupons will never not make sense."
That's the crux of our argument - if you do the work, the Plot Coupon is entirely unnecessary. There's no reason to make it a rule that your Noble can gain an audience with Important Personages regardless of anything else if you spend twenty minutes hashing our your noble title with the DM. They'll know whether you can gain an audience with any given VIP without needing to be smacked across the jowls with the Plot Coupon. They'll know if you get it For Free(TM), if you need to roll for it or offer some sort of tribute, or if you're gonna have to work as hard as any non-noble to get it - or if your noble status is a bar to gaining access to a specific VIP, rather than a Plot Coupon freebie.
There's no depth the Plot Coupon buys that isn't handled by a short conversation between player and DM, and the idea that the Plot Coupons "make sure the game can continue" is dumb. What if the players just so happen to not have the one single Plot Coupon they need to progress from their latest ****-up? The DM's gonna have to figure something out regardless, the Plot Coupon system is not remotely a guarantee they can "save" their game.
And if you do not do the work? Well, why should the DM give a shit about your Plot Coupon if they don't give a shit about your background - or if you don't give a shit about your background? If you're not willing to have that twenty-minute conversation prior to a two-year game, what makes you think the Plot Coupon entitles you to the benefits of having done the work?
Again - arguing that there should be more page space devoted to guiding players and DMs towards having those conversations is fine. That's a worthwhile goal. But the Plot Coupons do not steer people towards those conversations. At all. They prevent those conversations more than they facilitate them, because the player can just point to the coupon on their sheet and say "I have a Plot Coupon, gimme my freebie" without ever having to talk to the DM about what their Plot Coupon might mean. They don't need to do the work to gain the benefit that's supposed to come from the work, so why should they bother with the work?
Please do not contact or message me.
Kotath, please. Please. Please.
WHY do we need to waste 20+ pages of the new book on Plot Coupons and entirely discard the objectively better chargen rules from Origins? You've never once given any sort of answer other thasn "they help roleplaying" oir "they're deeper than boring crappy mechanical feats."
1.) They do dick monkey bupkis to 'Help Roleplaying'. A player who's going to think about his character's background, history, and connections will do that no matter what his Plot Coupon tells him to do. A a player who is not inclined to do those things will not do them because their Plot Coupon says they should. they'll just point to the Plot Coupon and say "the book says I get freebies, give them to me." No roleplaying is "encouraged" by these bad rules.
2.) Similarly, there is no "depth" in these Plot Coupons that isn't handled by feats. Can a feat be nothing but a 'boring' package of mechanical abilities? Sure. Can a player instead derive deep meaning from their choice of feat and hook the mechanical abilities that feat provides into a rich narrative for their character? Also sure. Somebody earlier asked how the Musician feat is a 'boring flavorless mechanical nothing' when it's there to allow you to prove in the rules of the game that you're a splendid musician. Can someone just say "I use Inspiring Song, everybody gets Inspiration"? Yes. Can someone also say "I'm a Noble, I get us an audience with the king" without doing any of the work? As per your rules, also yes. And if you say the Plot Coupon doesn't work, that they need to do some background legwork to justify using their Plot Coupon?
Then why is it presented as a Rule they are allowed to invoke whether they do the legwork you want from them or not?
Please do not contact or message me.
Subjectively better, Yurei. I know facts and opinions can look similar, and knowing he difference is a useful life skill to have. You should also know waste is a matter of perspective. People who don't want to roleplay, or otherwise act in-character, aren't going to do so no matter how many carrots you wave in their faces. Or, to put it another way...
You aren't arguing from a business perspective. We can't even remotely guess as to the cost-benefit ratio of the page space. Given what we do know, your position only makes sense if enough of the player base is disinterested in roleplaying. And that reads like an indictment. Even if someone wants to roleplay, they may not know how. That's why people are upset these "plot coupons" are likely leaving. These tools don't need to be useful to you in order to be useful.
Players who want to roleplay, who want to find that deeper meaning and have the necessary tools, will do so. The tension point here is what constitutes a necessary tool; which could be a skill they've honed or something on the page which inspires them. From where I sit, you can't seem to look past your own nose. The game is bigger than an audience of one; or however many people in this thread share your opinion. There are millions of players, and more will follow. Do we not have a moral obligation to think about them?
Or are we content with pulling up the ladder behind us?
To put this another way that you might better understand, Yurei, a Player's Handbook for a roleplaying game that doesn't address how to roleplay and apply that is little more than a "basic bonk" text of game mechanics.
You act like a twenty-page listing of Plot Coupons that push inflexibility is "addressing how to role play." It is not. Give me a week to refine and I could come up with two pages of text that do a far better job of illustrating hoe 'Role Playing' works than twenty pages of "this is how a Noble PC works in D&D Fifth Edition. If Your DM decides Nobles work differently in your game, that doesn't matter and they can get bent because THIS is how ALL Nobles work, regardless of campaign, setting, history, or circumstance. All Nobles always start with the EXACT same equipment, the EXACT same skills, and the EXACT same history, and if you don't like it you can just suffer."
That's not roleplaying. It's never been roleplaying. The Origin rules are, indeed, objectively better from a game design standpoint because they allow for much greater flexibility of creation, allow for presenting neutral points of view on backgrounds, and allow the DM to freely tailor the Origin rules to their liking in a way the 2014 Backgrounds, which are all created slpadash and haphazardly with absolutely no unifying structure or throughline between them, simply cannot be. A DM can easily use the origin rules to rattle off a pack of 'Standard for my setting' backgrounds to fit whichever fanciful narrative they wish to run, while the 2014 system would require them to spend days and days painfully untangling the whys and wherewithals of what is and is not 'allowed' in a Background.
The Origin rules are cleaner and more unified, and that means they're much easier for both DMs and players to grip, understand, and start toying around with. Maybe the DM increases starting coin up or down depending on their setting's general wealth - you can do that in origins but it's a pain in 2014. Maybe your DM introduces a bunch of new first-level feats specific to their setting for players to choose from and set their character apart within the setting - that's really easy in Origins but flat-out disallowed in 2014 outside of homebrew/houserules, since you're not allowed to give players feats and "Features" are so nebulous and poorly described/defined as to be effectively useless for serving as guidelines.
The Origins chargen rules are explained, step by step, piece by piece, and it's made clear what each step is for and why. It shows people what the system is doing and invites them, should they so desire, to alter those assumptions if they like right from the start. The 2014 "Background" system doesn't show people ****-all jack, and you can only monkey with that system and change its assumptions if you've been steeping yourself in 5e for years.
That is, in fact, objectively better game design.
Please do not contact or message me.
I think this is a good point, and worth making.
Thing is (to me), the 2014 background rules don't do a good job of this. Allow me to explain:
I think it's disingenious to argue that the newer background system is removing roleplaying or character creation tools.
2014 PHB 'Backgrounds' provides two skills, two tools or languages, starting equipment or starting wealth (variable up to 200gp), and one feat (here called a 'feature'): pick from the existing backgrounds or custom develop with dm. additionally, chose two personality traits, one ideal, one bond, and one flaw.
Origins UA 'Character Backgrounds' provide two skills, one tool proficiency, one language, starting equipment or starting wealth (50gp), and one level-1 feat. additionally, includes tasha's starting ability scores.
Q: can the 2014 backgrounds be recreated within the proposed revised rules rules?
A: yes (except for reduced starting wealth)
Q: but, Traits/Ideal/Bond/Flaw is missing. what replaces that in the proposed revised edition?
A: Origins UA did not include traits, but it was a (likely truncated) initial attempt bereft of final detail. those things are popular and may return. the most recent books are expected to be immediately compatible with revised edition, so if Giants includes Traits (but not ideal/bond/flaw) then that might be it going forward. this will likely not be insufficient for new players, and more experienced players can write their own (with inspiration from 2014 text and 3rd party materials). talk with your dm about what you'd like to add and why.
Q: but, Origins UA rules do not include any of the previous background-specific feats. how can 2014 backgrounds be fully recreated within the Origins UA template without those?
A: if there is a revised level-1 feat that seems close, apply that to your custom background (eg, a charlatan with Actor feat for advantage passing yourself off as a different person). any 2014 background-specific feats that do not add gameplay value (such as 'advantage' or '+x to check' verbiage) can therefore be copied over wholesale as inspiration for your custom background. talk with your dm about what you'd like to add and why.
Q: the trinket/document/animal/weapon/haunting i want is not listed in Origin UA backgrounds. how can i ensure my character starts with what they need?
A: you may use your starting wealth to "pre-purchase" every starting item individually if the default starting equipment was not appropriate. per the 2014 PHB, you decide how the character came by this equipment: inheritance, hand-me-down, stolen, newly store-bought, outfitted by benefactor, etc. this includes trinkets, keepsakes, and pets which might or might not have a meaningful price. the gold is a reasonable bounds for most characters, but sometimes more seem very plausible to the player. talk with your dm about what you'd like to add and why.
Q: Criminal Contacts feature cannot be replicated by purchase. how then?
A: if you can't buy it at a shop, talk with your dm about what you'd like to add and why.
Q: By Popular Demand feature cannot be replicated by purchase. how then?
A: privileges based upon skill should be settled in game in the moment. privileges based upon notoriety will depend entirely on plot and cannot be divorced from nor shoehorned into the story at hand. talk with your dm about what you'd like to add and why.
Q: Haunted One feature cannot be replicated by purchase. how then?
A: privileges based upon your appearance may require persuasion or performance and should be settled in game in the moment. since the revised PHB is supposed to be backwards compatible with all 5e official adventures, Curse of Strahd should continue to be an eligible source of content. therefore, the custom table of trinkets would continue to apply for any table that includes Strahd among it's reference books. talk with your dm about what you'd like to add and why.
Q: will the revised edition PHB include a section on "how to integrate your character into the world/campaign"? will it include traits/ideal/bond/flaw?
A: we don't know yet. the previous playtests including newest (UA8) continue to reference the Origins UA in their "how to playtest this UA" blurb up front. besides the example backgrounds, we have not seen this aspect revisited. since it likely won't include testable gameplay mechanisms and the devs have not show interest in crowdfunded grammar checking, we'll likely have to wait for release.
...feel free to add Q/A or restate this in any way that supports your particular viewpoint. we'll learn a lot about what you have to say.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
It's a good thing the 2014 PH doesn't actually spend 20 pages on a single background. :P
Subjectively, Yurei, never objectively. If you disagree, then you demonstrably don't understand the meaning of either word. And that immediately invalidates your opinions.
Out of curiosity, how many pages do you think will be devoted to the 144 sample backgrounds in the 2024 PH?
Beautifully summarised, Rumsey. Does this eloquence spring from lack, or overabundance, of rum? :)
Also, I very much enjoy how you identified the 2014 feat-ures as basically being mislabelled.
Either way, you get cake!
) ( ) ( (^)(^)(^)(^) _i__i__i__i_ (____________) |####|>o<|###| (____________)
Enjoy! :)
You yell at me when I crack wise on your shit. Do you really want to start that circus?
"Subjective" means an experience, emotion, or reaction that is intrinsic to a single person, i.e. something they were subject to.
"Objective" means something that can be empirically proven, without relying on subjective experiences that cannot be shared.
The Origins document can be empirically proven to be better game design. It's cleaner, more systemic, and more flexible, with greater options for both player and DM customization and creativity. Your subjective opinion is that the loss of Plot Coupons reduces player engagement and leads to less roleplaying and players unable to effectively learn how to roleplay. In my subjective experience (which you're always so quick to dismiss, ne? Yurei's opinions are subjective so they're worthless, but anyone else's subjective opinion is super cool!), not one single new player I've ever played with has ever used their Background Feature to Roleplay Better. I didn't do it when I started playing, neither did anyone else in my first game, no one I've ever shown how to play has used it, nobody I've talked to about the matter has used it.
If I were writing the book? I would include three 'Sample' backgrounds, at most, built using the new Origins rules. I would devote a page or so to stepping through the creation of an Origin's style background, piece by piece, including prompts on how to develop the idea such as "Think about where you grew up and who you grew up with, where and how you came into the profession you held before becoming an adventurer (or how you managed to get by without a profession), and what sort of impact those years had on you. If you can, discuss these ideas with your DM and ensure both of you are satisfied with your answers." The other two would be quicker versions of same, with breakdowns on how the same questions were asked but how different players came to different answers.
Rather than a vast and endless list of dry, pointless examples nobody cares about, I'd preferentially include a questionaire, a sidebar perhaps labeled Ten Questions to Answer When Creating Your Character. I'm a huge fan of Ginny D's old "Fifty Questions" YouTube video and refer to it frequently when working through a new character; I find tools like that to be much more beneficial than "here's twenty pages of random examples of stuff with absolutely no explanation whatsoever as to what they are or why any of them exist." Inviting a player to think, giving them real prompts such as direct, focused questions they can concretely answer, always produces higher quality characters and roleplaying than simply slapping someone across the jowls with an "Example" utterly devoid of explanation and saying "make something that looks like this" without any explanation whatsoever on WHY the example looks the way it does.
Please do not contact or message me.
I've always been a fan of the "10-minute Background" model. Not sure whom to attribute it to, though...
10-minute background
Step 1: Write five things about your character’s concept, background events, or physical description. Five things that you feel are essential parts of your character. (You are of course allowed to go above five.)
Step 2: Write two goals for the character that you, the player, would like to be part of the game.
Step 3: Write two secrets about your character. One that they know, and one that you as a player know but your character doesn't, yet. The DM will then write a third secret about your character that you as a player doesn't know about.
Step 4: Write three people somehow connected with your character. Two of them are friendly, and one of them a rival or enemy.
Step 5: Write three memories, mannerisms, or quirks your character has. Give some context for what they mean or why they are like this.
I also wouldn't use a UA document, intended to playtest rules, as a summation of roleplaying advice the whole book will give. Quite literally, they are writing in shorthand to get feedback on mechanics, not review a full book.
(and to that end, I think they knocked the mechanics for backgrounds out of the park.)