You seem to be arguing that if an ability is not an absolute, not something guaranteed to work, regardless of situation, then it is useless.
No. We're saying that whether it is guaranteed to work or not should be up to the DM, and therefore presenting it as an inviolate rule is at best misleading and at worst foments entitlement, all while taking up way more space than it needs to to have even the dubious benefit you ascribe to it.
Out of curiosity, how many pages do you think will be devoted to the 144 sample backgrounds in the 2024 PH?
The Character Origins UA contains the default Build Your Background rule and 18 backgrounds made using that rule. They take up a total of 5 pages. I have no earthly idea where you're getting 144 from.
You seem to be arguing that if an ability is not an absolute, not something guaranteed to work, regardless of situation, then it is useless.
No. We're saying that whether it is guaranteed to work or not should be up to the DM, and therefore presenting it as an inviolate rule is at best misleading and at worst foments entitlement, all while taking up way more space than it needs to to have even the dubious benefit you ascribe to it.
Out of curiosity, how many pages do you think will be devoted to the 144 sample backgrounds in the 2024 PH?
The Character Origins UA contains the default Build Your Background rule and 18 backgrounds made using that rule. They take up a total of 5 pages. I have no earthly idea where you're getting 144 from.
D&D Game Design Architects Jeremy Crawford and Christopher Perkins were on hand to give Nerdist a sneak peek at the current state of the rules. They revealed that the 2024 Player’s Handbook (PHB) features 12 classes, 48 subclasses, and over 144 origin options, as well as new feat, spell, and weapon options.
After slogging through all 22 pages of this thread, I am a bit stunned at it all.
Which, I mean, okay, yeah, it me, but still...
I got rid of feats entirely from backgrounds. There is a reason for this, but it has little to do with backgrounds, which I see as a part of character development and skill setting.
I also broke Backgrounds up into 3 kinds, that can be summed up as lotted, or backgrounds for Storylines, such as the Haunted background, "Origins" which really cover the period of childhood, and then Opportunities which cover the period of young adulthood up to becoming an adventurer.
In most cases, a character will get two. An Origin and an Opportunity. for some campaigns they may get a third, if the Dm decided they needed one. I have created 25 Opportunities, and 12 Origins.
Origins are are basically the circumstances one grew up in, or something about the background, Since it is possible to isekai into the world, there are backgrounds for Summoned, Reincarnated, and Corporeal sorts, but thee ar also Orphan, abandoned, runaway, street rat, blah blah. Opportunities are all basically focused on jobs", though they do include criminal, thug, and such.
yes, yes, I know -- this is a thread about the UA Origins doc. I am getting to it.
The 25 I created are examples. They do not cover all the possible ones -- and basically all of them follow the same pattern. Each gives a skill, a tool or kit (non consumable versus consumable, otherwise the same thing), equipment, wealth, and then something else (which varies -- but a language either spoken or written is the baseline, and this is a world where literacy isn't a norm).
So they get two skills, two tools, gear, money, and a language. If that sounds familiar, that's because it is very much intended to be exactly like the Origins UA -- though I had created it about two months before it came out based on the prior version we used in a campaign that was created four years ago.
On seeing the UA, however, I created a set of guidelines to follow. Because the 25 I created are very generic (they had to apply to all of the different cultures on the world) the expectation is exactly that -- that player will create them.
Each background is more than just a basic addition of mechanical parts. Each one has to add some aspect of role play to the characters history from before they became an adventurer (which is a thing, a job, a role and position in the world). Among the things, as an example, is a "failed apprenticeship" -- they tried to learn different things before they became an adventurer. Or maybe they did learn it, and so have some facility in a craft or trade.
I intentionally positioned Backgrounds after personality development, but within the same section of development -- and all of it is before they choose a class. Doing so subtly encourages folks to apply their personality and the way they see their character to their background -- because the goal is to have them develop one that is specific to their circumstance.
For personality stuff, I have players answer 20 Questions about them, then I do a Values (Virtues and Vices) section that includes drawing from their species and home lands (both of which have sets of virtues and vices) and then give them a list of possible ones they can choose from (but are not limited to), then a "reason to adventure", then they can use the XGE tables if they want, and that all comes after alignment and patron deity.
Then they move to background. So by the time they get to the place where they can create their own, they already know about the people they are a part of, the culture they come from, and at least a chunk of the kind of person they are. They also have a good idea of what they look like. All of that makes it easier for them to create a custom background, and may even influence the way they approach the class they are going to choose.
Which sounds like an awful lot, but as usual we've been doing some variation of this kind of things for years (I once had a 250 question handout they could complete while they went from 1st level to 7th level in the 1e days). We burn through this stuff in usually about 20 minutes, since we create characters as a group and they understand it all anyway. My development tuff is used by most of the other DMs in our circle because it helps create and guide unique characters.
With the bullet list of what goes into a background (and here I decided to use the "three sentence backstory" thread as a way to trigger a bit of the background dev), the longest I've seen anyone take was 15 minutes, and they were 12. Because they already know what skills they want, what tools and kits they want, and have an idea of the character's outlook. THey are just filling in the gaps or setting up to optimize for their class.
I the playtesting, the 25 examples I created were used twice -- and both were guild folks (crafts people). So I am likely to trim that down to 10. Folks liked the ability to be creative way more than they did the having to choose from a set of stuff in a book that does not fit the world, because all the existing backgrounds are literally written to work for FR, and there's nothing in FR that's like the new world.
(side note -- at 2nd and again at 5th level, we revisit the characters and ask another 20 questions, and so adjust and shift and adapt based on what they have gone through so far in the campaign).
Now, part of what I am seeing is that some folks think that without the background to guide them, they cannot create compelling characters that interest them. WHich to me suggests looking at how the DM has structured character development and building for their game.
I do not like "create your PC and come" style stuff -- I prefer everyone create their characters together (it improves teamwork, helps to start getting party dynamics laid out, and makes fro a great chance to do the meeting of the minds role play session).
But that doesn't work for everyone, so who knows,
Anyway, that's my thoughts -- I like the new set up far ore than the old one, despite not using the feats. And if backgrounds are only useful to someone for feats, then they probably shouldn't be using the, because it isn't about the background, its about the feat.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
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, 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: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.
Traits and trinkets are irrelevant to this discussion so omitted those questions.
First question and answer (setting aside starting resources, which is irrelevant to this discussion) : If this was true, there would not be later questions explaining differences in specific backgrounds.
Next question: "But they can't really be... " ... "So talk with your DM and work it out for yourselves" (the exact same thing that is being dismissed currently as insufficient for custom backgrounds), but without the same features being there as examples or inspiriation for newer players.
The next questions regarding background features all say essentially the same: "talk with your dm and work it out for yourselves."
Last question:
...They do not know whether they will provide any guidance at all. They provide negligible guidance with respect to the few specific examples discussed in that Q&A
My takeaway is that DM's will have more work to do with even less guidance.
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.
...
prediction noted. I'm prepared to eat crow in 2024 if skynet wins. however, as ken kindly reminds us: these are barebones tests of rules, not a sneak peak of pre-print gospel minus the color. if dm tools are what you want, then talk with your dm express that to the devs.
maybe a new "dear, benevolent overlords..." thread. I'll up-vote it without comment. it's a valid concern. we all want a good product.
ps, there's a lot of leftover pineapple rumcake in the break room. don't make me take it all home!
They are no longer taking formal feedback. The surveys are closed and there has been no new anything on this subject presented or even teased.
It is thus it feels far safer to say that what we've seen will be very close to what we get, something a lot closer to pure mechanics with negligible guidance on building backgrounds that are actually meaningful.
That really does not follow.
Playtest is for mechanics, and for getting the feel of how experienced players react to the new version.
The advice for newer players is unplaytestable*, because it's not being used by newer players. You just get a bunch of opinionated loudmouths opining on how they think it'll work, which isn't helpful in the slightest.
* Yes, you can test it, by giving it to actual inexperienced players in controlled circumstances. Which they may be doing. Or they're relying on their own professional opinionated loudmouths.
It is thus it feels far safer to say that what we've seen will be very close to what we get, something a lot closer to pure mechanics with negligible guidance on building backgrounds that are actually meaningful.
I think this is a totally unfair summary of what the Origins UA does. These are the questions the Background section explicitly asks the player to consider:
How does your Background influence your current worldview? Do you embrace or reject your Background? Did you form any relationships during your Background that endure today? Where did they spend most of their time? What did they do for a living? What capabilities and possessions did they acquire? What language did they learn from their family, associates, or studies? How did their past affect their ability scores?
Which I think is significantly meaningful. I think these questions really dig into Background as roleplaying aids to form a character's past and how it informs them as people. It asks these as generalized questions for all characters rather than having to specifically individualize them for each sample Background, which is better designed, in my opinion.
The 2014 PHB Background section asks these questions, which are also good, but focus more on the immediate past and how the character began adventuring.
Choosing a background provides you with important story cues about your character’s identity. The most important question to ask about your background is what changed? Why did you stop doing whatever your background describes and start adventuring? Where did you get the money to purchase your starting gear, or, if you come from a wealthy background, why don’t you have more money? How did you learn the skills of your class? What sets you apart from ordinary people who share your background?
And funnily enough as I was looking into this I found this sentence from the 2014 PHB
The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions.
Which says to me that the features are separate from the roleplaying suggestions and are a "concrete" benefit, or in other words a hard coded mechanical benefit.
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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 sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions.
Which says to me that the features are separate from the roleplaying suggestions and are a "concrete" benefit, or in other words a hard coded mechanical benefit.
Again, persuasion skill proficiency is a concrete benefit. Where in the rules does it say exactly what any given persuasion success does? Will a good persuasion roll, on its own, convince a king to give up their kingdom? Will it, alone, in all situations, grant an audience with a specific noble, no matter who they are and their relation to the party or player making the request?
Where does it say exactly how much any given athletics roll adds to any given jump, if anything at all?
"Hard coded" rules are perhaps 'hard coded' by way of existing, but are at best soft coded as far as implementation and how any given campaign treats them. Any player who insists on telling the DM how their world works or reacts does not need a DM.
Every single rule in any book in the game, every single stat, skill, ability, and other function of the game, mechanical or otherwise, is subject to DM's whimsy. Everything is a DM's choice, everything is a strong suggestion, but still just a suggestion.
So the notion of "hard coded" is a fallacy, because it presumes an additional degree of reliability over and above the baseline.
Incidentally, athletics doesn't add to a jump. It determines the success of a jump. The Strength score might add to the jump, but the athletics skill does not. A particular function may use the Athletics bonus as a distance in feet or yards (as a handy reference), but that isn't Athletics doing that, it is still Strength doing so, simply using the common baseline measure.
So, first off, nothing can be said to "always" work. On a given moment, a persuasion roll might convince a King to give up his throne on a single roll. In a different one, it might not. But a roll to get an audience with a noble cannot in all situation give an audience on a successful check with a given noble. No matter how that skill might be obtained, it simply isn't possible to hard code it so that it always works or always fails, because every single option, rule, possibility is still and always subject to the whim and whimsy fo the DM at any given moment, as per the rules.
Thus, the argument is empty.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions.
Which says to me that the features are separate from the roleplaying suggestions and are a "concrete" benefit, or in other words a hard coded mechanical benefit.
Again, persuasion skill proficiency is a concrete benefit. Where in the rules does it say exactly what any given persuasion success does?
Kotath, that is ...
1) not even the difference that I'm talking about, which is the difference that the 2014 PHB itself points out is between concrete benefits (of which the Feature is included) and roleplaying suggestions which basically means that the Features were not intended as roleplaying suggestions as you and Jounichi have been trying to say throughout this entire thread and
2) is a pretty facetious shifting of the bar for this entire conversation. You're basically saying "Well how concrete is anything, really?" Please don't do that.
Not to even mention that you ignored the meat of my post and focused on the throwaway comment at the end. I pointed out how the UA Origins document very much includes meaningful guidance for building backgrounds and provided the questions that it asks the player to think about when making a Background, which I feel are just as, if not more, meaningful that the guidance provided in the 2014 PHB.
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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!
Honestly again the confusion between Background Features as concrete mechanical packages and Background Features as roleplaying suggestions is exactly why I think the Origins UA is so much better because it clearly delineates the difference between the two.
Honestly again the confusion between Background Features as concrete mechanical packages and Background Features as roleplaying suggestions is exactly why I think the Origins UA is so much better because it clearly delineates the difference between the two.
Yes, exactly. Also, by clearly delineating between the two, they make it very easy to make custom backgrounds, not unlike building with legos.
The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions.
Which says to me that the features are separate from the roleplaying suggestions and are a "concrete" benefit, or in other words a hard coded mechanical benefit.
Again, persuasion skill proficiency is a concrete benefit. Where in the rules does it say exactly what any given persuasion success does? Will a good persuasion roll, on its own, convince a king to give up their kingdom? Will it, alone, in all situations, grant an audience with a specific noble, no matter who they are and their relation to the party or player making the request?
Where does it say exactly how much any given athletics roll adds to any given jump, if anything at all?
"Hard coded" rules are perhaps 'hard coded' by way of existing, but are at best soft coded as far as implementation and how any given campaign treats them. Any player who insists on telling the DM how their world works or reacts does not need a DM.
Every single rule in any book in the game, every single stat, skill, ability, and other function of the game, mechanical or otherwise, is subject to DM's whimsy. Everything is a DM's choice, everything is a strong suggestion, but still just a suggestion.
So the notion of "hard coded" is a fallacy, because it presumes an additional degree of reliability over and above the baseline.
Incidentally, athletics doesn't add to a jump. It determines the success of a jump. The Strength score might add to the jump, but the athletics skill does not. A particular function may use the Athletics bonus as a distance in feet or yards (as a handy reference), but that isn't Athletics doing that, it is still Strength doing so, simply using the common baseline measure.
So, first off, nothing can be said to "always" work. On a given moment, a persuasion roll might convince a King to give up his throne on a single roll. In a different one, it might not. But a roll to get an audience with a noble cannot in all situation give an audience on a successful check with a given noble. No matter how that skill might be obtained, it simply isn't possible to hard code it so that it always works or always fails, because every single option, rule, possibility is still and always subject to the whim and whimsy fo the DM at any given moment, as per the rules.
Thus, the argument is empty.
I am confused. Your tone is disagreement but it sounds like you are agreeing with me nearly completely...
Your Strength (Athletics) check covers difficult situations you encounter while climbing, jumping, or swimming. Examples include the following activities:
You attempt to climb a sheer or slippery cliff, avoid hazards while scaling a wall, or cling to a surface while something is trying to knock you off.
You try to jump an unusually long distance or pull off a stunt midjump.
You struggle to swim or stay afloat in treacherous currents, storm-tossed waves, or areas of thick seaweed. Or another creature tries to push or pull you underwater or otherwise interfere with your swimming.
Jumping distances as allowed normally under the rules is movement. I suppose there might be some DM out there that makes PC's make checks just for walking down the street or perhaps a nice jog around the block and laughs at them tripping and falling on every bad roll, but most DM's treat movement as simply movement.
Well, tone wise, it should be read with a bemused tone.
You proved my point, btw. Your cited rules don't speak to athletics *adding* to distance. They speak to attempting to succeed when you try to jump an unusually long distance. You previously said that Athletics adds to jump. It does not, It determines success or failure.
I mean, strictly speaking, a DM could have them check as they walk down the street (a DC of 1, perhaps, which is automatic success at most tables). And if they are moving through difficult terrain in a strong wind with rain while under attack, I might be inclined to have them make such a roll among their combat rolls (usually before the combat roll, since they might be flung prone).
The DC is the key there, not their Athletics.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions.
Which says to me that the features are separate from the roleplaying suggestions and are a "concrete" benefit, or in other words a hard coded mechanical benefit.
Again, persuasion skill proficiency is a concrete benefit. Where in the rules does it say exactly what any given persuasion success does?
Kotath, that is ...
2) is a pretty facetious shifting of the bar for this entire conversation. You're basically saying "Well how concrete is anything, really?" Please don't do that.
That is, in part, what's being said -- however, the argument fails because it relies on a presumption of something being fixed in the first place, and nothing int he game is, since everythign is subject to a DM's decision.
However, because of that, it undermines itself, because the premise includes the notion of a DM deciding that something is fixed and concrete and gives that benefit all the time or whatever. Both are entirely possible outcomes alongside many additional ones.
So, as a position, it is vacant of meaning -- and that's before the fallacies are even analyzed. Not a precise comparison, but it is a whataboutist style and approach.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions.
Which says to me that the features are separate from the roleplaying suggestions and are a "concrete" benefit, or in other words a hard coded mechanical benefit.
Again, persuasion skill proficiency is a concrete benefit. Where in the rules does it say exactly what any given persuasion success does?
Kotath, that is ...
1) not even the difference that I'm talking about, which is the difference that the 2014 PHB itself points out is between concrete benefits (of which the Feature is included) and roleplaying suggestions which basically means that the Features were not intended as roleplaying suggestions as you and Jounichi have been trying to say throughout this entire thread and
2) is a pretty facetious shifting of the bar for this entire conversation. You're basically saying "Well how concrete is anything, really?" Please don't do that.
Not to even mention that you ignored the meat of my post and focused on the throwaway comment at the end. I pointed out how the UA Origins document very much includes meaningful guidance for building backgrounds and provided the questions that it asks the player to think about when making a Background, which I feel are just as, if not more, meaningful that the guidance provided in the 2014 PHB.
1) For that distinction to be relevant, you have to define 'concrete' in a meaningful way.
No. For the distinction to be relevant it only has to be in regards to the usefulness it has as a tool provided by the book compared to the tool provided in the Origins UA, which has been the point and topic of the discussion of this entire thread this entire time, please stop trying to go off topic by saying that we have to define "concrete." We do not. Not for the purposes of this discussion and for you to try and add that requirement to that discussion is you trying to shift the scope of discussion to a point of sophistry for which there isn't really a definitive answer and thus find some tenuous footing for your specious argument in a grey area. An area in which the conversation did not start and which has no useful relevance.
Proficiencies are one of the benefits and my examples regarding persuasion and athletics go directly to exactly the manner in which that benefit is concrete. Trying to spin features as some other type of 'concrete' is something different.
I'm not trying to spin anything, the 2014 PHB itself includes Background Features in the list of things that are concrete. Explicitly and verbatim.
And I have NOT been saying 'they are just roleplaying suggestions.' I have been saying they are not absolutes that somehow always apply, that simply being a noble (as one of the examples) does not guarantee an audience with any specific other noble, ignoring all context and circumstance.
I didn't say you thought they were "just" roleplaying suggestions. I am saying that the 2014 PHB itself excludes them from the list of things that are meant to be roleplaying suggestions, which muddies their purpose because many of them obviously include things that work as, very specific and niche to the Background, roleplaying suggestions. Which is why the UA rules are better, because they are clearer.
2) See (1). It is a concrete benefit but that does not equal one that always applies, even in situations where it might possibly apply (again, such as a noble of Waterdeep trying to get an audience with the Drow )
Again, the 2014 Background features are muddying the water between concrete mechanical package and roleplaying suggestion, which contravenes their very own distinction between the two and which the Origins UA rectifies. The Origins UA is better written, more clear, and more useful to players and DMs, even on the face of it.
I think we are going to have to simply disagree on 'meaningful guidance.' I found what is there to be very light. Although I do agree that the 2014 PHB could also use more in that regard (other than merely a lot more examples by way of features).
Quibble all you want with the sophistry of what is better/worse and more/less meaningful. Even on the face of it, the Origins UA literally asks more questions about the character's Background, giving more generalized and useful guidance for character creation than the 2014 Background section.
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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 sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions.
Which says to me that the features are separate from the roleplaying suggestions and are a "concrete" benefit, or in other words a hard coded mechanical benefit.
Again, persuasion skill proficiency is a concrete benefit. Where in the rules does it say exactly what any given persuasion success does? Will a good persuasion roll, on its own, convince a king to give up their kingdom? Will it, alone, in all situations, grant an audience with a specific noble, no matter who they are and their relation to the party or player making the request?
Where does it say exactly how much any given athletics roll adds to any given jump, if anything at all?
"Hard coded" rules are perhaps 'hard coded' by way of existing, but are at best soft coded as far as implementation and how any given campaign treats them. Any player who insists on telling the DM how their world works or reacts does not need a DM.
Every single rule in any book in the game, every single stat, skill, ability, and other function of the game, mechanical or otherwise, is subject to DM's whimsy. Everything is a DM's choice, everything is a strong suggestion, but still just a suggestion.
So the notion of "hard coded" is a fallacy, because it presumes an additional degree of reliability over and above the baseline.
Incidentally, athletics doesn't add to a jump. It determines the success of a jump. The Strength score might add to the jump, but the athletics skill does not. A particular function may use the Athletics bonus as a distance in feet or yards (as a handy reference), but that isn't Athletics doing that, it is still Strength doing so, simply using the common baseline measure.
So, first off, nothing can be said to "always" work. On a given moment, a persuasion roll might convince a King to give up his throne on a single roll. In a different one, it might not. But a roll to get an audience with a noble cannot in all situation give an audience on a successful check with a given noble. No matter how that skill might be obtained, it simply isn't possible to hard code it so that it always works or always fails, because every single option, rule, possibility is still and always subject to the whim and whimsy fo the DM at any given moment, as per the rules.
Thus, the argument is empty.
I am confused. Your tone is disagreement but it sounds like you are agreeing with me nearly completely...
Your Strength (Athletics) check covers difficult situations you encounter while climbing, jumping, or swimming. Examples include the following activities:
You attempt to climb a sheer or slippery cliff, avoid hazards while scaling a wall, or cling to a surface while something is trying to knock you off.
You try to jump an unusually long distance or pull off a stunt midjump.
You struggle to swim or stay afloat in treacherous currents, storm-tossed waves, or areas of thick seaweed. Or another creature tries to push or pull you underwater or otherwise interfere with your swimming.
Jumping distances as allowed normally under the rules is movement. I suppose there might be some DM out there that makes PC's make checks just for walking down the street or perhaps a nice jog around the block and laughs at them tripping and falling on every bad roll, but most DM's treat movement as simply movement.
Well, tone wise, it should be read with a bemused tone.
You proved my point, btw. Your cited rules don't speak to athletics *adding* to distance. They speak to attempting to succeed when you try to jump an unusually long distance. You previously said that Athletics adds to jump. It does not, It determines success or failure.
I mean, strictly speaking, a DM could have them check as they walk down the street (a DC of 1, perhaps, which is automatic success at most tables). And if they are moving through difficult terrain in a strong wind with rain while under attack, I might be inclined to have them make such a roll among their combat rolls (usually before the combat roll, since they might be flung prone).
The DC is the key there, not their Athletics.
Semantics. If they can safely jump the distance given by the normal formula (that being normal movement), then anything beyond that would involve adding some distance to that guaranteed safe distance.
And yes, there are conditions under which a roll might be relevant outside of such a situation (landing on uneven terrain on the other side, for example, even for a jump within normal otherwise safe distance). But in that specific case I cited, it would be the safe distance, plus some uncertain additional distance.
And DC is irrelevant without the context of what is rolled to try to match or beat it.
Semantics is the study of meaning, so absolutely semantics. Using it as a dismissive term is capitulation.
Same goes for using the term "rhetoric", btw, since all threads are strictly rhetoric (which is the spoken or written exchange of ideas).
Again, you stated that athletics adds to. It does not. It presumes that the distance being attempted is outside the normal speed range of the jump (high or running) specified by the particular character as being an attempt and then the additional distance would nominally increase the DC of the effort and require an athletics check.
You are attempting to say that Athletics provides that extra distance -- it doesn't, one has to roll an athletics check even when not attempting a high jump or long jump of unusually long distance (see rules on high and long jump).
Simply put, you were wrong, and attempting to move the goal posts beyond the reality of it stating in no way shape or form that athletics adds distance (note tense and case, as well) is kinda beneath you because you are otherwise pretty good at this. If you could move past the being stuck on a given point that is flawed and find a greater ability to flex beyond singular examples, you could be even better.
I mean, you are having to reinterpret the terms to suit your purpose, and when challenged accurately you shift to bad faith ("semantics!"), and further undermine your arguments as a whole over a minor point that has little practical value in your larger schema -- to use the idiom, you lost sight of the forest for the tree. Additionally, you anticipated a tone of disagreement based on word selection, when there is no tone in textual communication without reliance on metatextual aspects (such as capitalization, use of idiom, emojis, and so forth), which was a presumption of bad faith as well.
I don't particularly expect you take this in the spirit and manner intended and provided -- as I noted, this is more a bemused observation than anything I am invested in (it is a game, after all), though I am earnest and sometimes "off-kilter".
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In my experience, pedantry is more likely to burn bridges than build them.
Agreed.
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions.
Which says to me that the features are separate from the roleplaying suggestions and are a "concrete" benefit, or in other words a hard coded mechanical benefit.
Again, persuasion skill proficiency is a concrete benefit. Where in the rules does it say exactly what any given persuasion success does?
Kotath, that is ...
1) not even the difference that I'm talking about, which is the difference that the 2014 PHB itself points out is between concrete benefits (of which the Feature is included) and roleplaying suggestions which basically means that the Features were not intended as roleplaying suggestions as you and Jounichi have been trying to say throughout this entire thread and
2) is a pretty facetious shifting of the bar for this entire conversation. You're basically saying "Well how concrete is anything, really?" Please don't do that.
Not to even mention that you ignored the meat of my post and focused on the throwaway comment at the end. I pointed out how the UA Origins document very much includes meaningful guidance for building backgrounds and provided the questions that it asks the player to think about when making a Background, which I feel are just as, if not more, meaningful that the guidance provided in the 2014 PHB.
1) For that distinction to be relevant, you have to define 'concrete' in a meaningful way.
No. For the distinction to be relevant it only has to be in regards to the usefulness it has as a tool provided by the book compared to the tool provided in the Origins UA, which has been the point and topic of the discussion of this entire thread this entire time, please stop trying to go off topic by saying that we have to define "concrete." We do not. Not for the purposes of this discussion and for you to try and add that requirement to that discussion is you trying to shift the scope of discussion to a point of sophistry for which there isn't really a definitive answer and thus find some tenuous footing for your specious argument in a grey area. An area in which the conversation did not start and which has no useful relevance.
Proficiencies are one of the benefits and my examples regarding persuasion and athletics go directly to exactly the manner in which that benefit is concrete. Trying to spin features as some other type of 'concrete' is something different.
I'm not trying to spin anything, the 2014 PHB itself includes Background Features in the list of things that are concrete. Explicitly and verbatim.
And I have NOT been saying 'they are just roleplaying suggestions.' I have been saying they are not absolutes that somehow always apply, that simply being a noble (as one of the examples) does not guarantee an audience with any specific other noble, ignoring all context and circumstance.
I didn't say you thought they were "just" roleplaying suggestions. I am saying that the 2014 PHB itself excludes them from the list of things that are meant to be roleplaying suggestions, which muddies their purpose because many of them obviously include things that work as, very specific and niche to the Background, roleplaying suggestions. Which is why the UA rules are better, because they are clearer.
Why in blazes is this distinction relevant? What is unclear there? Muddied purpose? Again there are no 5e police running about arresting any DM somehow 'misinterpreting' the rules.
My arguments since the beginning are that the clarity between the two is more useful and helpful to player and DM's. I have never said anything about any sort of 5E police. Less misinterpretation leads to better understanding of the rules and their purpose and this is my point. When people try and use their Noble Feature to gain an audience with an outright enemy noble, they are using that Feature for exactly what the rules and the book tell them they can, as a mechanical superpower that they rightly should expect to work explicitly how it says it does. This is obviously nonsensical in in certain situations, but that is because it doesn't make sense in the roleplay and we get to this contradiction between mechanical superpower and roleplay suggestion precisely because of how unclear it is and how badly written it is. The Origins UA makes this distinction much more clear and thus is a better written set of rules for a game that is meant to be playable.
Your arguments seem to come down to "Because of these rules, someone somewhere might be playing 'wrong.'" It is a problematic position on many levels.
My argument is that many people in many places are having arguments about how these rules work, which is counterproductive to actual play. If you need evidence look no further than this very thread. Writing that is more clear and more clearly delineates what is a mechanical superpower and what is a roleplaying suggestion like, but not limited to, the Origins UA document, work better as an actual tool for a roleplaying game. Is it perfect? Nope. But that's not the point. It is better.
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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!
D&D Game Design Architects Jeremy Crawford and Christopher Perkins were on hand to give Nerdist a sneak peek at the current state of the rules. They revealed that the 2024 Player’s Handbook (PHB) features 12 classes, 48 subclasses, and over 144 origin options, as well as new feat, spell, and weapon options.
Satisfied?
And your belief that "origin option" = "just background" is based on... what exactly?
The 144 sounds to me like marketing speak for mixing and matching species, backgrounds, languages and proficiencies in various combinations.
It is not presented as an inviolate rule though. That is something being painted over top of it, something not actually said.
Yes, they are:
The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies and languages) and roleplaying suggestions."
"Concrete benefit" = "something you, the player, are entitled to." And they are specifically shown to NOT be suggestions like the rest of the background. Fall in line, DM, or be a tyrant.
My argument is that many people in many places are having arguments about how these rules work, which is counterproductive to actual play. If you need evidence look no further than this very thread. Writing that is more clear and more clearly delineates what is a mechanical superpower and what is a roleplaying suggestion like, but not limited to, the Origins UA document, work better as an actual tool for a roleplaying game. Is it perfect? Nope. But that's not the point. It is better.
Citation needed. There have been people claiming other people are using them in such ways or having campaign strife over such arguments.
I think you know that asking for citation for actual play problems is a weak argumentative tactic here, Kotath. Anything I quote to you will just be dismissed as anecdotal. Do you really want to show how weak your hand is here by trying this?
And you seem to be dismissing that this thread is just as much arguing about the Origins UA document as about the 2014 PHB.
How so? My whole point is a compare and contrast between the two. And there is the exact example I brought up which you yourself used. You pointed out how the Noble Feature is obviously meant to bend to the requirements of roleplay. I gave you a quote from the 2014 PHB:
The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions.
Which demonstrates how the Background Features are explicitly relegated to the column of concrete benefits and explicitly not included in roleplaying suggestions. So no, it's actually not meant to bend to roleplay requirements, at least not inasmuch as anything else is.
This is a clear blurring of the lines between mechanical benefits and roleplay suggestions, especially when used in the manner we've been speaking about, to gain an audience with an outright enemy force who has no compelling in-character reason to grant an audience.
This blurring of the lines is pretty bad and counterproductive to the point of the rules of a ttrpg even on the face of it, without supporting evidence of causing issues. Which is what makes the Origins UA a step in a better direction, because they are more clear about the line between a mechanical benefit and the roleplaying suggestion part of the character.
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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!
In my experience, pedantry is more likely to burn bridges than build them.
Agreed.
So why are you making this distinction? A character with a 15 strength can leap 15' safely. So, say there is a 16' chasm under otherwise good jumping conditions. The character has to leap approx 18' (including enough space to land), so they have to leap 3 more feet than they safely can using the formula only. Whatever the DC the DM decides upon, if they make or beat it, they will have lept 18+ feat, 3+ more feat than normal without having made the DC check. Thus having made the check will have added 3+ feet to their normal jump distance.
That is the definition of 'add.' 'To increase the size, number or amount'
because you claim that athletics adds to jumping distance.
It doesn't.
At no point does anything say "Athletics increases your jumping distance".
not in your example (which describes a use of it where it does not add, but provides an example of when to use it), and notin the rules.
And the specific reason that it doesn't add is because if it did, then it would do so for jumps of less than your capability, as well. It does not add to anything.
But also...
that isn't the part of the response with pedantry.
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
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No. We're saying that whether it is guaranteed to work or not should be up to the DM, and therefore presenting it as an inviolate rule is at best misleading and at worst foments entitlement, all while taking up way more space than it needs to to have even the dubious benefit you ascribe to it.
The Character Origins UA contains the default Build Your Background rule and 18 backgrounds made using that rule. They take up a total of 5 pages. I have no earthly idea where you're getting 144 from.
https://nerdist.com/article/dungeons-and-dragons-2024-rules-update-preview-players-handbook-dungeon-masters-guide-monster-manual/
Satisfied?
After slogging through all 22 pages of this thread, I am a bit stunned at it all.
Which, I mean, okay, yeah, it me, but still...
I got rid of feats entirely from backgrounds. There is a reason for this, but it has little to do with backgrounds, which I see as a part of character development and skill setting.
I also broke Backgrounds up into 3 kinds, that can be summed up as lotted, or backgrounds for Storylines, such as the Haunted background, "Origins" which really cover the period of childhood, and then Opportunities which cover the period of young adulthood up to becoming an adventurer.
In most cases, a character will get two. An Origin and an Opportunity. for some campaigns they may get a third, if the Dm decided they needed one. I have created 25 Opportunities, and 12 Origins.
Origins are are basically the circumstances one grew up in, or something about the background, Since it is possible to isekai into the world, there are backgrounds for Summoned, Reincarnated, and Corporeal sorts, but thee ar also Orphan, abandoned, runaway, street rat, blah blah. Opportunities are all basically focused on jobs", though they do include criminal, thug, and such.
yes, yes, I know -- this is a thread about the UA Origins doc. I am getting to it.
The 25 I created are examples. They do not cover all the possible ones -- and basically all of them follow the same pattern. Each gives a skill, a tool or kit (non consumable versus consumable, otherwise the same thing), equipment, wealth, and then something else (which varies -- but a language either spoken or written is the baseline, and this is a world where literacy isn't a norm).
So they get two skills, two tools, gear, money, and a language. If that sounds familiar, that's because it is very much intended to be exactly like the Origins UA -- though I had created it about two months before it came out based on the prior version we used in a campaign that was created four years ago.
On seeing the UA, however, I created a set of guidelines to follow. Because the 25 I created are very generic (they had to apply to all of the different cultures on the world) the expectation is exactly that -- that player will create them.
Each background is more than just a basic addition of mechanical parts. Each one has to add some aspect of role play to the characters history from before they became an adventurer (which is a thing, a job, a role and position in the world). Among the things, as an example, is a "failed apprenticeship" -- they tried to learn different things before they became an adventurer. Or maybe they did learn it, and so have some facility in a craft or trade.
I intentionally positioned Backgrounds after personality development, but within the same section of development -- and all of it is before they choose a class. Doing so subtly encourages folks to apply their personality and the way they see their character to their background -- because the goal is to have them develop one that is specific to their circumstance.
For personality stuff, I have players answer 20 Questions about them, then I do a Values (Virtues and Vices) section that includes drawing from their species and home lands (both of which have sets of virtues and vices) and then give them a list of possible ones they can choose from (but are not limited to), then a "reason to adventure", then they can use the XGE tables if they want, and that all comes after alignment and patron deity.
Then they move to background. So by the time they get to the place where they can create their own, they already know about the people they are a part of, the culture they come from, and at least a chunk of the kind of person they are. They also have a good idea of what they look like. All of that makes it easier for them to create a custom background, and may even influence the way they approach the class they are going to choose.
Which sounds like an awful lot, but as usual we've been doing some variation of this kind of things for years (I once had a 250 question handout they could complete while they went from 1st level to 7th level in the 1e days). We burn through this stuff in usually about 20 minutes, since we create characters as a group and they understand it all anyway. My development tuff is used by most of the other DMs in our circle because it helps create and guide unique characters.
With the bullet list of what goes into a background (and here I decided to use the "three sentence backstory" thread as a way to trigger a bit of the background dev), the longest I've seen anyone take was 15 minutes, and they were 12. Because they already know what skills they want, what tools and kits they want, and have an idea of the character's outlook. THey are just filling in the gaps or setting up to optimize for their class.
I the playtesting, the 25 examples I created were used twice -- and both were guild folks (crafts people). So I am likely to trim that down to 10. Folks liked the ability to be creative way more than they did the having to choose from a set of stuff in a book that does not fit the world, because all the existing backgrounds are literally written to work for FR, and there's nothing in FR that's like the new world.
(side note -- at 2nd and again at 5th level, we revisit the characters and ask another 20 questions, and so adjust and shift and adapt based on what they have gone through so far in the campaign).
Now, part of what I am seeing is that some folks think that without the background to guide them, they cannot create compelling characters that interest them. WHich to me suggests looking at how the DM has structured character development and building for their game.
I do not like "create your PC and come" style stuff -- I prefer everyone create their characters together (it improves teamwork, helps to start getting party dynamics laid out, and makes fro a great chance to do the meeting of the minds role play session).
But that doesn't work for everyone, so who knows,
Anyway, that's my thoughts -- I like the new set up far ore than the old one, despite not using the feats. And if backgrounds are only useful to someone for feats, then they probably shouldn't be using the, because it isn't about the background, its about the feat.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
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prediction noted. I'm prepared to eat crow in 2024 if skynet wins. however, as ken kindly reminds us: these are barebones tests of rules, not a sneak peak of pre-print gospel minus the color. if dm tools are what you want, then
talk with your dmexpress that to the devs.maybe a new "dear, benevolent overlords..." thread. I'll up-vote it without comment. it's a valid concern. we all want a good product.
ps, there's a lot of leftover pineapple rumcake in the break room. don't make me take it all home!
_,__, ,_ (____|\.-./|_) |####||.=.||#| (____||.=.||_)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!
That really does not follow.
Playtest is for mechanics, and for getting the feel of how experienced players react to the new version.
The advice for newer players is unplaytestable*, because it's not being used by newer players. You just get a bunch of opinionated loudmouths opining on how they think it'll work, which isn't helpful in the slightest.
* Yes, you can test it, by giving it to actual inexperienced players in controlled circumstances. Which they may be doing. Or they're relying on their own professional opinionated loudmouths.
I think this is a totally unfair summary of what the Origins UA does. These are the questions the Background section explicitly asks the player to consider:
Which I think is significantly meaningful. I think these questions really dig into Background as roleplaying aids to form a character's past and how it informs them as people. It asks these as generalized questions for all characters rather than having to specifically individualize them for each sample Background, which is better designed, in my opinion.
The 2014 PHB Background section asks these questions, which are also good, but focus more on the immediate past and how the character began adventuring.
And funnily enough as I was looking into this I found this sentence from the 2014 PHB
Which says to me that the features are separate from the roleplaying suggestions and are a "concrete" benefit, or in other words a hard coded mechanical benefit.
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!
Every single rule in any book in the game, every single stat, skill, ability, and other function of the game, mechanical or otherwise, is subject to DM's whimsy. Everything is a DM's choice, everything is a strong suggestion, but still just a suggestion.
So the notion of "hard coded" is a fallacy, because it presumes an additional degree of reliability over and above the baseline.
Incidentally, athletics doesn't add to a jump. It determines the success of a jump. The Strength score might add to the jump, but the athletics skill does not. A particular function may use the Athletics bonus as a distance in feet or yards (as a handy reference), but that isn't Athletics doing that, it is still Strength doing so, simply using the common baseline measure.
So, first off, nothing can be said to "always" work. On a given moment, a persuasion roll might convince a King to give up his throne on a single roll. In a different one, it might not. But a roll to get an audience with a noble cannot in all situation give an audience on a successful check with a given noble. No matter how that skill might be obtained, it simply isn't possible to hard code it so that it always works or always fails, because every single option, rule, possibility is still and always subject to the whim and whimsy fo the DM at any given moment, as per the rules.
Thus, the argument is empty.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Kotath, that is ...
1) not even the difference that I'm talking about, which is the difference that the 2014 PHB itself points out is between concrete benefits (of which the Feature is included) and roleplaying suggestions which basically means that the Features were not intended as roleplaying suggestions as you and Jounichi have been trying to say throughout this entire thread and
2) is a pretty facetious shifting of the bar for this entire conversation. You're basically saying "Well how concrete is anything, really?" Please don't do that.
Not to even mention that you ignored the meat of my post and focused on the throwaway comment at the end. I pointed out how the UA Origins document very much includes meaningful guidance for building backgrounds and provided the questions that it asks the player to think about when making a Background, which I feel are just as, if not more, meaningful that the guidance provided in the 2014 PHB.
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!
Honestly again the confusion between Background Features as concrete mechanical packages and Background Features as roleplaying suggestions is exactly why I think the Origins UA is so much better because it clearly delineates the difference between the two.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Yes, exactly. Also, by clearly delineating between the two, they make it very easy to make custom backgrounds, not unlike building with legos.
Well, tone wise, it should be read with a bemused tone.
You proved my point, btw. Your cited rules don't speak to athletics *adding* to distance. They speak to attempting to succeed when you try to jump an unusually long distance. You previously said that Athletics adds to jump. It does not, It determines success or failure.
I mean, strictly speaking, a DM could have them check as they walk down the street (a DC of 1, perhaps, which is automatic success at most tables). And if they are moving through difficult terrain in a strong wind with rain while under attack, I might be inclined to have them make such a roll among their combat rolls (usually before the combat roll, since they might be flung prone).
The DC is the key there, not their Athletics.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
That is, in part, what's being said -- however, the argument fails because it relies on a presumption of something being fixed in the first place, and nothing int he game is, since everythign is subject to a DM's decision.
However, because of that, it undermines itself, because the premise includes the notion of a DM deciding that something is fixed and concrete and gives that benefit all the time or whatever. Both are entirely possible outcomes alongside many additional ones.
So, as a position, it is vacant of meaning -- and that's before the fallacies are even analyzed. Not a precise comparison, but it is a whataboutist style and approach.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
No. For the distinction to be relevant it only has to be in regards to the usefulness it has as a tool provided by the book compared to the tool provided in the Origins UA, which has been the point and topic of the discussion of this entire thread this entire time, please stop trying to go off topic by saying that we have to define "concrete." We do not. Not for the purposes of this discussion and for you to try and add that requirement to that discussion is you trying to shift the scope of discussion to a point of sophistry for which there isn't really a definitive answer and thus find some tenuous footing for your specious argument in a grey area. An area in which the conversation did not start and which has no useful relevance.
I'm not trying to spin anything, the 2014 PHB itself includes Background Features in the list of things that are concrete. Explicitly and verbatim.
I didn't say you thought they were "just" roleplaying suggestions. I am saying that the 2014 PHB itself excludes them from the list of things that are meant to be roleplaying suggestions, which muddies their purpose because many of them obviously include things that work as, very specific and niche to the Background, roleplaying suggestions. Which is why the UA rules are better, because they are clearer.
Again, the 2014 Background features are muddying the water between concrete mechanical package and roleplaying suggestion, which contravenes their very own distinction between the two and which the Origins UA rectifies. The Origins UA is better written, more clear, and more useful to players and DMs, even on the face of it.
Quibble all you want with the sophistry of what is better/worse and more/less meaningful. Even on the face of it, the Origins UA literally asks more questions about the character's Background, giving more generalized and useful guidance for character creation than the 2014 Background section.
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!
Semantics is the study of meaning, so absolutely semantics. Using it as a dismissive term is capitulation.
Same goes for using the term "rhetoric", btw, since all threads are strictly rhetoric (which is the spoken or written exchange of ideas).
Again, you stated that athletics adds to. It does not. It presumes that the distance being attempted is outside the normal speed range of the jump (high or running) specified by the particular character as being an attempt and then the additional distance would nominally increase the DC of the effort and require an athletics check.
You are attempting to say that Athletics provides that extra distance -- it doesn't, one has to roll an athletics check even when not attempting a high jump or long jump of unusually long distance (see rules on high and long jump).
Simply put, you were wrong, and attempting to move the goal posts beyond the reality of it stating in no way shape or form that athletics adds distance (note tense and case, as well) is kinda beneath you because you are otherwise pretty good at this. If you could move past the being stuck on a given point that is flawed and find a greater ability to flex beyond singular examples, you could be even better.
I mean, you are having to reinterpret the terms to suit your purpose, and when challenged accurately you shift to bad faith ("semantics!"), and further undermine your arguments as a whole over a minor point that has little practical value in your larger schema -- to use the idiom, you lost sight of the forest for the tree. Additionally, you anticipated a tone of disagreement based on word selection, when there is no tone in textual communication without reliance on metatextual aspects (such as capitalization, use of idiom, emojis, and so forth), which was a presumption of bad faith as well.
I don't particularly expect you take this in the spirit and manner intended and provided -- as I noted, this is more a bemused observation than anything I am invested in (it is a game, after all), though I am earnest and sometimes "off-kilter".
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
In my experience, pedantry is more likely to burn bridges than build them.
Agreed.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
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Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
My arguments since the beginning are that the clarity between the two is more useful and helpful to player and DM's. I have never said anything about any sort of 5E police. Less misinterpretation leads to better understanding of the rules and their purpose and this is my point. When people try and use their Noble Feature to gain an audience with an outright enemy noble, they are using that Feature for exactly what the rules and the book tell them they can, as a mechanical superpower that they rightly should expect to work explicitly how it says it does. This is obviously nonsensical in in certain situations, but that is because it doesn't make sense in the roleplay and we get to this contradiction between mechanical superpower and roleplay suggestion precisely because of how unclear it is and how badly written it is. The Origins UA makes this distinction much more clear and thus is a better written set of rules for a game that is meant to be playable.
My argument is that many people in many places are having arguments about how these rules work, which is counterproductive to actual play. If you need evidence look no further than this very thread. Writing that is more clear and more clearly delineates what is a mechanical superpower and what is a roleplaying suggestion like, but not limited to, the Origins UA document, work better as an actual tool for a roleplaying game. Is it perfect? Nope. But that's not the point. It is better.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
And your belief that "origin option" = "just background" is based on... what exactly?
The 144 sounds to me like marketing speak for mixing and matching species, backgrounds, languages and proficiencies in various combinations.
Yes, they are:
The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies and languages) and roleplaying suggestions."
"Concrete benefit" = "something you, the player, are entitled to." And they are specifically shown to NOT be suggestions like the rest of the background. Fall in line, DM, or be a tyrant.
I think you know that asking for citation for actual play problems is a weak argumentative tactic here, Kotath. Anything I quote to you will just be dismissed as anecdotal. Do you really want to show how weak your hand is here by trying this?
How so? My whole point is a compare and contrast between the two. And there is the exact example I brought up which you yourself used. You pointed out how the Noble Feature is obviously meant to bend to the requirements of roleplay. I gave you a quote from the 2014 PHB:
Which demonstrates how the Background Features are explicitly relegated to the column of concrete benefits and explicitly not included in roleplaying suggestions. So no, it's actually not meant to bend to roleplay requirements, at least not inasmuch as anything else is.
This is a clear blurring of the lines between mechanical benefits and roleplay suggestions, especially when used in the manner we've been speaking about, to gain an audience with an outright enemy force who has no compelling in-character reason to grant an audience.
This blurring of the lines is pretty bad and counterproductive to the point of the rules of a ttrpg even on the face of it, without supporting evidence of causing issues. Which is what makes the Origins UA a step in a better direction, because they are more clear about the line between a mechanical benefit and the roleplaying suggestion part of the character.
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!
because you claim that athletics adds to jumping distance.
It doesn't.
At no point does anything say "Athletics increases your jumping distance".
not in your example (which describes a use of it where it does not add, but provides an example of when to use it), and notin the rules.
And the specific reason that it doesn't add is because if it did, then it would do so for jumps of less than your capability, as well. It does not add to anything.
But also...
that isn't the part of the response with pedantry.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds