I have no problem with the 2014 features being rewritten in some less manner that makes it clear they are not so absolute as some of them come across as. No problem with that whatsoever.
Ok sure, but think holistically here. When redesigning a system, nothing should be held so sacred that it cannot change because that only leads to stagnation and a stop in progress to a state which might be better for the end users. If you look at the UA system, the function of the 2014 style Background Features is there and has been preserved. They're just not called the Background Features anymore. The name has shifted to encompass the mechanical bits of the character and only the mechanical bits of the character. The other parts, the freeform narrative bits that are still significant and have mechanical gameplay have been shifted to the backstory section, which is clearly indicated by the kinds of guiding questions the Origins documents has the player consider when making their character.
What I have an issue with is a lack of anything at all discussing so much as the concept of such, including player and DM together ensuring that they do fit with the DM's world and what kind of effects on gameplay they might have.
So I think there is discussion of that sort in the UA document, but that is a qualified answer. Here's what I mean ... I think that the questions about how the Background affect the character's abilities, skills, and feats are exactly that kind of discussion you are hoping for because they are questions designed to get the player to think about how the backstory directs those things that have the most clear affect on gameplay: stats.
As for the effects of the narrative story details like allies and social factions, I think that might actually also belong more in the realm of the DM/player negotiation rather than requiring harder rules. After all I think for the rules to start to try and dictate the specific effects of roleplay heavy details would be for them to start to intrude on the DM prerogative of creating their own world. But then again, the DMG does have those optional Social rules, so maybe that's where this belongs?
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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!
I want to challenge this description of meaninglessness. Just because something doesn't have mechanical rules associated with it doesn't make it meaningless.
While I agree with that position, I also say that if it has no meaningful effect on gameplay, it is meaningless. Keep in mind that I do not see the 2014 features anywhere near so rigedly as opponents of them here seem to. And the 2024 backgrounds actually have similar descriptive text without any explanation or discussion what it really means in gameplay terms.
Opponents of the former paint the existing background features in absolute terms and dance around the question of the similar text of the 2024 versions. And at least some do seem to be saying that since they have no rules formally attached to them, they are, actually, meaningless.
everything that is written within a 2014 background is useful to that background and meaningful in gameplay to someone who feels their character has had that experience. even so, the meaningful gameplay benefits that 2014 PHB background feats provide are roleplay benefits. no rules function, no way to evaluate how an NPC you don't know would choose to interpret the site of you, but not no value. a noble might be dragged away from his local and his privilege to the underdark and yet even still that noble's background continues to inform their actions even when the feature has been effectively nullified. backgrounds are meaningful. situations can change and experiences can be different, but the background is still there to be a lens and a tool for the player.
the sailor knows how to board a ship properly and politely to avoid being thrown off. meaningful in roleplay.
the wildspacer does not have disadvantage on her melee attacks in zero gravity. concrete benefit. meaningful in roleplay too, why not.
...makes you wonder if 2014 background specific feats could all have been converted to concrete benefits. like giving the sailor advantage in negotiating fares, insight into the trustworthiness of a crew they've just met, etc...
I have no problem with the 2014 features being rewritten in some less manner that makes it clear they are not so absolute as some of them come across as. No problem with that whatsoever.
What I have an issue with is a lack of anything at all discussing so much as the concept of such, including player and DM together ensuring that they do fit with the DM's world and what kind of effects on gameplay they might have.
edit: or like that, sure. more of a "as a sailor you've likely got confidence in matters of..."
the player meshing with the dm's world thing is somewhat assumed. as it's often been said: it's the dm's responsibility to get you into the world, but it's the player's responsibility to find a plausible reason to stay there.
having said all that, have you seen those Baldur's Gate backgrounds? the only thing i noticed changing was the features, but they're a great example of customization. for instance the noble Feature: Position of Privilege changes to the Baldur's Gate Feature: Patriar. what a great example of expectations for a noble for a specific place that is not Waterdeep! many benefits that come across as concrete while not saying a word about to evaluate them (and therefore can't be rules (but nonetheless not meaningless)). like how the corrupt guards can tell you apart from a foreign noble, spy, merchant, well-dressed-adventurer-with-a-coin-to-flip, etc. (signet ring, maybe? yeah, those can't be faked lol). not meaningless, but definitely an expectation the dm will have to manage. speaking of guards, soldiers include the benefit of walking through gates without question... while on patrol. go check out the Baldur's Gate Gazetteer asap. sometimes these things are only offered a limited time. kinda weird they didn't update these to the 2024 standard of feats (point to you), but worth mentioning since i haven't seen it come up in the thread yet.
I am not saying that it necessarily needs any hard rules. However, I am saying there should be some acknowledgement and discussion of the topic, at least generally.
Ok, so general guidelines about how narratively established truths can affect gameplay, yes that does seem like something that would be helpful. I'm scanning the general guidelines for the 2014 Backgrounds though, and I'm also not seeing something like that. So it sounds like a wish list for any game system in general and not a particular critique of the Origins UA?
Note that it isn't just social ties, either. A sage's research skill, for example (which can be very useful to a DM in pointing the party in any direction beneficial to move the plot along smoothly, or the hermit's 'secret' or noble's high or urchin's low politics, any of which can be the central theme of an entire campaign. The DM should also give some thought bridging the character's background with how they join the campaign, too. These should be soft rules, as in some basic guidance to get players and DM's thinking about such concepts.
It does belong in character creation and specifically the background section, although could have some deeper discussion in the DMG.
Ok so those are discrete things that we can look at individually, right? A Sage's research feature depicts a person who not only knows things, but knows things about knowing things. Obviously this can be mechanically represented with a good Intelligence score and proficiency in the knowledge skills, but beyond that, you also want some guidance on getting the player and the DM thinking about their significance and impact on the campaign? Well I think the guiding questions of "Where did they spend most of their time? What did they do for a living? What capabilities and possessions did they acquire?" could definitely work if you answer something like: I spent most of my time in the Royal Archives. I made my living copying and scribing histories. This gave me a broad scope of knowledge regarding all the official news and history that made it's way to the information networks of my kingdom.
And with those answers you have built a character who not only knows things, but knows things about knowing things. Yes, it is somewhat limited in scope to news that came in to that particular kingdom, whatever kingdom the character comes from as per the discussion between the player and the DM, but this is better than the all inclusive superpower that it used to be because it is more tailored and more controlled than the 2014 Sage Feature.
It puts more control into the collective hands of the player and the DM while at the same time allowing them more creative freedom than something that is a niche as the 2014 style BG Feature.
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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!
I am not saying that it necessarily needs any hard rules. However, I am saying there should be some acknowledgement and discussion of the topic, at least generally.
Ok, so general guidelines about how narratively established truths can affect gameplay, yes that does seem like something that would be helpful. I'm scanning the general guidelines for the 2014 Backgrounds though, and I'm also not seeing something like that. So it sounds like a wish list for any game system in general and not a particular critique of the Origins UA?
Note that it isn't just social ties, either. A sage's research skill, for example (which can be very useful to a DM in pointing the party in any direction beneficial to move the plot along smoothly, or the hermit's 'secret' or noble's high or urchin's low politics, any of which can be the central theme of an entire campaign. The DM should also give some thought bridging the character's background with how they join the campaign, too. These should be soft rules, as in some basic guidance to get players and DM's thinking about such concepts.
It does belong in character creation and specifically the background section, although could have some deeper discussion in the DMG.
Ok so those are discrete things that we can look at individually, right? A Sage's research feature depicts a person who not only knows things, but knows things about knowing things. Obviously this can be mechanically represented with a good Intelligence score and proficiency in the knowledge skills, but beyond that, you also want some guidance on getting the player and the DM thinking about their significance and impact on the campaign? Well I think the guiding questions of "Where did they spend most of their time? What did they do for a living? What capabilities and possessions did they acquire?" could definitely work if you answer something like: I spent most of my time in the Royal Archives. I made my living copying and scribing histories. This gave me a broad scope of knowledge regarding all the official news and history that made it's way to the information networks of my kingdom.
And with those answers you have built a character who not only knows things, but knows things about knowing things. Yes, it is somewhat limited in scope to news that came in to that particular kingdom, whatever kingdom the character comes from as per the discussion between the player and the DM, but this is better than the all inclusive superpower that it used to be because it is more tailored and more controlled than the 2014 Sage Feature.
It puts more control into the collective hands of the player and the DM while at the same time allowing them more creative freedom than something that is a niche as the 2014 style BG Feature.
I am not defending the 2014 rules fanatically.
...
I just feel that something like the features is useful.
And I just demonstrated how the guidelines from the UA do it better.
With respect to sage, more along the lines of "knows things" (already covered in the skills and possibly in the feat) and how to research knowledge that they do not have (this is an actual skill. Anyone who attends university and takes it the least bit seriously ends up with this skill).
Yes, what you're saying matches my description of someone who not only knows things, but knows things about knowing things.
This is not something there is any actual existing skill for, since in terms of lore skills, it is cross -lore. The 2014 sage research ability is very controlled. It literally says that you do not necessarily find the information directly, merely have an idea where to look for the information.
As a mechanical ability a player has every right to expect that the power works on everything every time. Even if the DM rules that it cannot be found, as the power says they might, the power still allows you to know where and from whom to obtain the information because those two conditions are not mutually exclusive. If you shift this feature to simply be part of the roleplay suggestions and not a concrete mechanic, it prevents weird edge cases like the Sage who somehow know who to speak to to get knowledge about something for which they by all right shouldn't have that lead per the DM's reality.
Say your sage 'remembers' a reference what he seeks in the Book of Knowing Stuff.' He does not know exactly where that book is, but knows there are collectors who do (because that is the direction the DM wants to send the party in). Said collectors need things done for them before they will provide information and that information leads the party to the Library of the Lost Book, with any adventures along the way the DM wants to offer, likely some threat at the library itself to deal with and then the book may or may not give all the answers sought.
As an example that fits completely in with the text of the ability.
Another example that fits within the text of the 2014 Sage Feature is if the DM has created a secret in their setting that literally no one knows and which the characters are meant to discover. The Sage character can rightly ask that they know where to look for that secret and whom to ask and the rules don't allow for the DM to simply say no. The most they can say is, "You somehow know that you would need to go to X and ask Y even though those things are impossible to find" according to the rules. Now any DM with even a little experience will just say no, but that contravenes what the 2014 PHB says. Something easy to fix ... and fix it is what the UA does.
And if it is something that the DM does not want the party to find, or literally does not exist, the DM can say "Well, last information is that it is in (completely suicidal to enter place)" or "From your research, you have found no evidence of such a thing existing at all" respectively.
And the way the UA would handle this is slightly different and I think more customized and tailored for each individual character.
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!
It never occurred to me to try and count them. It probably wouldn't be good for my mental health.
Ophidimancer, they aren't arguing in good faith. At this point, I'm not even sure they care if you understand their point (because you have demonstrated you do several times, and they change it right after). This after outright falsehoods regarding their own statements.
Enjoy, but know that it is just arguing for the sake of arguing (which is fine and fun as well, as long as all parties are aware of it.).
Ahh, thank you.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I am not saying that it necessarily needs any hard rules. However, I am saying there should be some acknowledgement and discussion of the topic, at least generally.
Ok, so general guidelines about how narratively established truths can affect gameplay, yes that does seem like something that would be helpful. I'm scanning the general guidelines for the 2014 Backgrounds though, and I'm also not seeing something like that. So it sounds like a wish list for any game system in general and not a particular critique of the Origins UA?
Note that it isn't just social ties, either. A sage's research skill, for example (which can be very useful to a DM in pointing the party in any direction beneficial to move the plot along smoothly, or the hermit's 'secret' or noble's high or urchin's low politics, any of which can be the central theme of an entire campaign. The DM should also give some thought bridging the character's background with how they join the campaign, too. These should be soft rules, as in some basic guidance to get players and DM's thinking about such concepts.
It does belong in character creation and specifically the background section, although could have some deeper discussion in the DMG.
Ok so those are discrete things that we can look at individually, right? A Sage's research feature depicts a person who not only knows things, but knows things about knowing things. Obviously this can be mechanically represented with a good Intelligence score and proficiency in the knowledge skills, but beyond that, you also want some guidance on getting the player and the DM thinking about their significance and impact on the campaign? Well I think the guiding questions of "Where did they spend most of their time? What did they do for a living? What capabilities and possessions did they acquire?" could definitely work if you answer something like: I spent most of my time in the Royal Archives. I made my living copying and scribing histories. This gave me a broad scope of knowledge regarding all the official news and history that made it's way to the information networks of my kingdom.
And with those answers you have built a character who not only knows things, but knows things about knowing things. Yes, it is somewhat limited in scope to news that came in to that particular kingdom, whatever kingdom the character comes from as per the discussion between the player and the DM, but this is better than the all inclusive superpower that it used to be because it is more tailored and more controlled than the 2014 Sage Feature.
It puts more control into the collective hands of the player and the DM while at the same time allowing them more creative freedom than something that is a niche as the 2014 style BG Feature.
I am not defending the 2014 rules fanatically.
...
I just feel that something like the features is useful.
And I just demonstrated how the guidelines from the UA do it better.
With respect to sage, more along the lines of "knows things" (already covered in the skills and possibly in the feat) and how to research knowledge that they do not have (this is an actual skill. Anyone who attends university and takes it the least bit seriously ends up with this skill).
Yes, what you're saying matches my description of someone who not only knows things, but knows things about knowing things.
This is not something there is any actual existing skill for, since in terms of lore skills, it is cross -lore. The 2014 sage research ability is very controlled. It literally says that you do not necessarily find the information directly, merely have an idea where to look for the information.
As a mechanical ability a player has every right to expect that the power works on everything every time. Even if the DM rules that it cannot be found, as the power says they might, the power still allows you to know where and from whom to obtain the information because those two conditions are not mutually exclusive. If you shift this feature to simply be part of the roleplay suggestions and not a concrete mechanic, it prevents weird edge cases like the Sage who somehow know who to speak to to get knowledge about something for which they by all right shouldn't have that lead per the DM's reality.
Say your sage 'remembers' a reference what he seeks in the Book of Knowing Stuff.' He does not know exactly where that book is, but knows there are collectors who do (because that is the direction the DM wants to send the party in). Said collectors need things done for them before they will provide information and that information leads the party to the Library of the Lost Book, with any adventures along the way the DM wants to offer, likely some threat at the library itself to deal with and then the book may or may not give all the answers sought.
As an example that fits completely in with the text of the ability.
Another example that fits within the text of the 2014 Sage Feature is if the DM has created a secret in their setting that literally no one knows and which the characters are meant to discover. The Sage character can rightly ask that they know where to look for that secret and whom to ask and the rules don't allow for the DM to simply say no. The most they can say is, "You somehow know that you would need to go to X and ask Y even though those things are impossible to find" according to the rules. Now any DM with even a little experience will just say no, but that contravenes what the 2014 PHB says. Something easy to fix ... and fix it is what the UA does.
And if it is something that the DM does not want the party to find, or literally does not exist, the DM can say "Well, last information is that it is in (completely suicidal to enter place)" or "From your research, you have found no evidence of such a thing existing at all" respectively.
And the way the UA would handle this is slightly different and I think more customized and tailored for each individual character.
Declaring is not proving. You have demonstrated your opinion.
I laid out my demonstration, not just a empty declaration. If you disagreed with it, you could at least disagree with the actual content. But you really haven't been participating in this conversation in good faith anyway, so I don't know what I'm expecting.
"As a mechanical ability a player has every right to expect that the power works on everything every time." Again, this is simply a false statement. A player does not have a right to expect to succeed in every skill check, for a target never to make their saving through, for a target to even be valid at all, at least not simply because the player wants it to be.
And none of those is how the Sage superpower is designed. There is no roll, no chance, it just works like it says it does.
And having nothing at all fails to do anything 100% of the time.
Which is a strawman, since there is no example of having nothing. I very clearly demonstrated how the UA replaces the Sage feature, but you're just not engaging. That's ok, you can just go on as you've been doing. I think it's been made clear how little you're actually willing to engage in valid discussion rather than using shady tactics just to justify your stance when you could have just said from the beginning that you simply like what you like.
Have fun with that, I don't think I will feed you anymore.
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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!
Which is a strawman, since there is no example of having nothing. I very clearly demonstrated how the UA replaces the Sage feature, but you're just not engaging. That's ok, you can just go on as you've been doing. I think it's been made clear how little you're actually willing to engage in valid discussion rather than using shady tactics just to justify your stance when you could have just said from the beginning that you simply like what you like.
Have fun with that, I don't think I will feed you anymore.
It comes down to fear of change more than anything else. The "debate" was always pointless because those who wanted the 2014 background setup to stay as it is had already made up their mind about it before a word was spoken.
Basically. It doesn't matter how often we demonstrate that there's still plenty of room for guidance and character building suggestions, that the new rules even in their basic, incomplete testing state can accomplish the same end. If it isn't this exact thing, if it isn't forty prebuilt backgrounds taking up thirty pages of book with nebulous, ill-defined Plot Coupon "Features" nobody has any green goddamn clue how to replicate that players have to pick between? It's Simply Not Good Enough, and it never can or will be. We're thirty pages and over a year deep now, still trying to prove to the same people that the new system doesn't lose anything that was worth keeping. It's maddening, but such is the Internet, I guess
Kotath, you NEED TO STOP invoking Rule Zero as a justification of Plot Coupon superpowers. You cannot argue that players and DMs both are floundering helplessly, completely unable to figure out how to make backgrounds work without hard-coded Plot Coupon "Examples" to grind their nose in, while also claiming that the exact same players and DMs are *clearly* too intelligent and experienced to dogmatically follow those Plot Coupons even when doing so makes no damn sense.
You do not, can not, have it both ways. Either players and DMs are too stupid to know how to D&D without Plot Coupons and thus will follow the Plot Coupons as dogmatically as they follow the initiative or attack roll rules, or players and DMs are able to adapt on the fly to ensure their tale continues to unfold properly - at which point they do not and never have needed Plot Coupons to make it happen.
One or the other of those *must* be true by your reckoning, you CAN NOT claim Rule Zero is a justification of Plot Coupons.
Which is a strawman, since there is no example of having nothing. I very clearly demonstrated how the UA replaces the Sage feature, but you're just not engaging. That's ok, you can just go on as you've been doing. I think it's been made clear how little you're actually willing to engage in valid discussion rather than using shady tactics just to justify your stance when you could have just said from the beginning that you simply like what you like. Have fun with that, I don't think I will feed you anymore.
It comes down to fear of change more than anything else. The "debate" was always pointless because those who wanted the 2014 background setup to stay as it is had already made up their mind about it before a word was spoken.
Basically. It doesn't matter how often we demonstrate that there's still plenty of room for guidance and character building suggestions, that the new rules even in their basic, incomplete testing state can accomplish the same end. If it isn't this exact thing, if it isn't forty prebuilt backgrounds taking up thirty pages of book with nebulous, ill-defined Plot Coupon "Features" nobody has any green goddamn clue how to replicate that players have to pick between? It's Simply Not Good Enough, and it never can or will be. We're thirty pages and over a year deep now, still trying to prove to the same people that the new system doesn't lose anything that was worth keeping. It's maddening, but such is the Internet, I guess
You could just ask the mods to lock the thread. Then maybe send a nice tweet to Mr. Crawford about how good the first UA background rules were.
...
Oh, a test. I'm gonna state my opinion:
The 2014 background rules are pretty bad, because the "features" set is poorly designed and lacks any sense of game balance. Also, they fail to give much guidance or structure to making custom background features.
Meanwhile, the UA Origins background rules are excellent, and the single best thing in all of the UAs. They give every character a feat, which was sorely needed, provide a full design system for every mechanical choice, and explicitly present all the example backgrounds as the result of that system. This means the examples are, themselves, excellent guidance for the "design" of backgrounds, while still freeing the player and DM to easily create what they want for the narrative bits. If the player or DM wants the narrative bits to directly conect to the mechanical bits, they can, or they can ignore those potential connections as they see fit. Everything gets to have meaning (if you want it).
...
Let's see if someone comes along and tries to nitpick my opinion to death.
The 2014 background rules are pretty bad, because the "features" set is poorly designed and lacks any sense of game balance. Also, they fail to give much guidance or structure to making custom background features.
Meanwhile, the UA Origins background rules are excellent, and the single best thing in all of the UAs. They give every character a feat, which was sorely needed, provide a full design system for every mechanical choice, and explicitly present all the example backgrounds as the result of that system. This means the examples are, themselves, excellent guidance for the "design" of backgrounds, while still freeing the player and DM to easily create what they want for the narrative bits. If the player or DM wants the narrative bits to directly conect to the mechanical bits, they can, or they can ignore those potential connections as they see fit. Everything gets to have meaning (if you want it).
...
Let's see if someone comes along and tries to nitpick my opinion to death.
So just to check here, if I disagree with any aspect of your statement, am I 'nitpicking it to death?'
I do agree that there is a lot of good in the UA origins section, but feel that bolded line should be explicitly stated, since even though there was no guidance in doing so, it is actually explicitly stated in the 2014 rules.
And I feel that, in lieu of what is there in the 2014 rules, which is not guidance and is not very well written, there should be something that covers that topic. A simple discussion of the topic would likely be fine, though, without needing to try to write out formal 'features' for each listed background.
So, I mostly agree with you, except for that?
look, if you want to shape the 2024 DMG/PHB guidance for building campaigns that loop in backgrounds, as you seem to indicate that you do, then you'll have to start a new thread with that explicit purpose. leave behind discussion of what constitutes 'guidance,' 'concrete,' 'nits,' etc. strongly recommended that you find a way to frame your new exploration of topics without any mention of 2014 background features at all, if you can help it. just to avoid any hint of ...what's a good word? someone said fanaticism?
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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!
This means the examples are, themselves, excellent guidance for the "design" of backgrounds, while still freeing the player and DM to easily create what they want for the narrative bits.
I do agree that there is a lot of good in the UA origins section, but feel that bolded line should be explicitly stated, since even though there was no guidance in doing so, it is actually explicitly stated in the 2014 rules.
(trimmed things down a bit)
OK, this could be constructive.
The UA is just a playtest document (really a "playtest" since the UA format doesn't match what I think of as a full RPG playtest, and I expect they'll be doing the real playtesting in-house with NDAs). Notice how, for example, none of the UA documents have said anything about rope or pitons or other climbing equipment, nor anything about how Athletics is used for climbing. Yet, no-one is up in arms about 2024 D&D removing climbing from the game... This is (probably) because they aren't changing anything with those rules, or just aren't focusing on them yet. I think the same is true for more detailed advice on character creation and story. In particular, I wouldn't be surprised if they were keeping (or at least streamlining) the traits/ideals/bonds/flaws stuff, but aren't bothering (re)writing it into the UA documents, because it wouldn't be worth the time, when they want playtesters to focus on the new mechanics. Note that nothing has said they are replacing that system.
Similarly, the PHB is definitely gonna have a set of questions the player should answer about their character background and personality. Some of them showed up in the UA document, but there will be a whole chapter or so devoted to this. The UA also says "This D&D material is in draft form, usable in your D&D campaign but not refined by full game development and editing."
Anyway, the reason I think the UA Origins version is more freeing to the player and DM, even without that sort of advice, is: they have removed the burden of coming up with mechanical "features" from the creative process. All of that has now been encapsulated in the feat/ASIs/proficiencies/whatever, and folks can write background narratives without needing to be game designers. If they are designers, they (the player or DM) could probably come up with good stuff (and that can be the DM's prerogative), but "make up your own background" no longer requires that real-life skill.
Anyway, the reason I think the UA Origins version is more freeing to the player and DM, even without that sort of advice, is: they have removed the burden of coming up with mechanical "features" from the creative process. All of that has now been encapsulated in the feat/ASIs/proficiencies/whatever, and folks can write background narratives without needing to be game designers. If they are designers, they (the player or DM) could probably come up with good stuff (and that can be the DM's prerogative), but "make up your own background" no longer requires that real-life skill.
Thing is, I see that as 'without being burdened with having any idea what, if any, meaning the background has.' Again, as if being just tossed somewhere completely unrelated to your background far enough away that it becomes nothing more than just a cool story.
There were always skill and /or tool proficiencies and languages attached to backgrounds. So that 'without needing to be game designers' bit (which begs the question as to whether DM's are only supposed to use stock worlds), comes across as 'too much work, so they get nothing.' (And that impression is also why I had the 'nothing always fails' reaction earlier in this discussion). I get the sense that you do not actually mean it that way, though?
Correct, I don't mean it that way. I'm going to break it down a little bit:
Personally, I don't think that something needs a game mechanic in order to have "meaning." Actually, I very strongly disagree with that, but we don't need to argue about it; it's a matter of taste. I can understand why you feel that way.
"too much work, so they get nothing" -> well, no, the "feature" has been replaced by a whole-ass feat! And the first level feat list (which I assume we've only seen part of) is already pretty flexible.
As it happens, I think the 1st level feats make for a much better powerset than the 2014 background features, in part because they've been designed and balanced better. (Again, a matter of taste, of course.)
Here's a quick-and-dirty example background (very quick, as this is just a forum post and not a character I'm about to play):
My mother was a knight (so I have Athletics proficiency), and my father was a successful merchant (so I have Persuasion proficiency). I grew up in a castle, and we had a locksmith on retainer who also tutored me when I was growing up (so I have Thieves' Tools proficiency). There was a Druid who helped all the nearby farmers grow their crops, whom I used to spend lots of time following around (so I have Magic Initiate (Primal)). After I came of age, I took up with a band of Dwarves (so I know Dwarven) and started to learn to be a Paladin...
Most of that is pretty trite (I'm not spending time on it), and I really don't like when a DM tries to make me justify every skill/whatever with my heritage (bleh). But it should at least cover the basic idea of my story bits having meaning, yet me not having to write new mechanics for that meaning.
"which begsraises the question as to whether DM's are only supposed to use stock worlds" -> some do, some don't. Some write a bunch of new mechanics, some don't. It's perfectly possible to have a custom world with stock rules. Not every DM wants to write custom worlds, not every DM wants to write custom rules, and not every player wants to write custom rules.
When you literally cannot believe that someone would have different thought patterns than you, there is not much point in continuing this discussion. We really should just agree to disagree.
Whether you believe it or not, some of us actually think of our characters as beings that had actual lives before the campaign started and are not literally dropped in to the campaign from some other dimension with no connections to or knowledge of the campaign world (or are at least not normally, I do know there are campaigns based on that very premise). (And even in an Isekai campaign, the characters almost always have some degree of the Far Traveller 'All Eyes on You' feature). If the background narrative is intended to be meaningless, then again, I ask you, what is the point to having it at all?
Meanwhile, it does not explicitly say the narrative text is meaningless. Anyone taking the "Select a premade Background from the 'Sample Backgrounds' section" is also choosing such a narrative. They are going to want to know, from the DM, how that narrative applies to the DM's world. If it does not at all, then they have not really chosen that background at all, but rather just that combination of options. That is arguably more restrictive, rather than less.
I do believe, and I know Yurei believes as well, that different people can have different thought patterns. But the printed game does not have to, and indeed cannot, perfectly cater to every single way of thinking or viewpoint, and it would be foolish of them to try. This is especially true when different thought processes, ways of reading the rules, and priorities are mutually exclusive.
More importantly - the coupons you're championing are not a prerequisite to characters having "actual lives before the campaign." Roleplay prompts that get players thinking about their lives before the campaign are totally fine. Giving those prompts the implied force of law (e.g. by calling them "features" that the player is therefore entitled to) are not. Your insistence that your opponents are against characters having lives and connections before the campaign starts is nothing but a strawman, and does nothing save undermine your own points.
So what you're saying is that players don't necessarily need Plot Coupons, they need hundred-page dossiers detailing every single person they've ever met, the precise and exact position, role, and responsibilities of every single one of those people in society, the exact degree to which the character is indebted to or holds debt from each of those people, the precise attitude each and every person the character has ever met holds towards the character, an hour-by-hour timeline of the character's entire life prior to campaign start...
No.
If you can't fit everything truly relevant to your low-level character's background on a single page, you'd better have a fantastic gorram reason why you can't. And note that these Plot Coupons you've spent thirty-two pages championing ALSO do nothing to answer your absurdly exhaustive list of Must-Know Background Minutiae. They occasionally pay lip service by saying "work with your DM", but if ALL THAT is what you're fishing for in the base rules? That's a dramatically unreasonable burden to put on the average player and you know it.
As for your quick and dirty background, your mother... was a knight? Is she dead now or retired? Was her title stripped or is knight just an informal military station rather than a noble rank in that society? If you trained with the military (for your athletics) or at least grew up in barracks, what connections do you have with the military? Anyone there who mentors you or would help you out in a pinch? Are you beholden to the military? Even if you are not on active duty, could they call you into service?
Grew up in a castle. Whose? What is your character's relationship to them? There is a druid that you know well enough to have learned some of their craft from them. Surly they are relevant in any ongoing adventures, even if just for consultation purposes. You just 'took up with a band of Dwarves.' Is it their castle then? Was your mother in their service? Who are they, exactly? If it isn't their castle, do they live there or are they some sort of mercenary unit the castle's owner hired? Since you learned paladinhood through them, they seem some sort of formal order with an oath....or did you become a paladin independently, somehow?
And other than 'Son of a knight' it sounds like there was not much especially noteworthy about your character's background. Apparently, your character just worked out until meeting the dwarves and becoming a paladin. They learned nothing of military protocols from their mother and nothing of farming from the druid. The dwarves seem just a random bunch of dwarves, nothing deeper to them. Are those aspects of your background not worthy of any deeper thought? Are those not topics for your DM to consider and discuss with you?
Or is your character just some guy with stats who just happens to be there, learned as little as possible growing up and have no emotional connections to those you have actually learned from along the way?
Again, if I were actually building a character, I would spend actual time on these and other questions. But I'm not, so I didn't. Well, also, I'm not a fan of pretentious DMs and their pretentious detail-mongering ;) so I didn't focus on the details.
But wait (I ask, already bracing for the bait-and-switch?), I thought I was demonstrating "meaning" by showing mechanical game impact of my story choices, thus using your defintion of "meaning." Which is why I didn't bother with all the emotional connection stuff, which is normally 100% of meaning for me. Which is it that's important again? Both?
So what you're saying is that players don't necessarily need Plot Coupons, they need hundred-page dossiers detailing every single person they've ever met, the precise and exact position, role, and responsibilities of every single one of those people in society, the exact degree to which the character is indebted to or holds debt from each of those people, the precise attitude each and every person the character has ever met holds towards the character, an hour-by-hour timeline of the character's entire life prior to campaign start...
No.
If you can't fit everything truly relevant to your low-level character's background on a single page, you'd better have a fantastic gorram reason why you can't. And note that these Plot Coupons you've spent thirty-two pages championing ALSO do nothing to answer your absurdly exhaustive list of Must-Know Background Minutiae. They occasionally pay lip service by saying "work with your DM", but if ALL THAT is what you're fishing for in the base rules? That's a dramatically unreasonable burden to put on the average player and you know it.
If you are not going to discuss in good faith, just stop. Please cite ANY example I have given or even any of the 2014 features that require more than a couple contact names.
Nor does "The character has a sense of court etiquette' equal "DM must write everything to do with court etiquette out in detail." It just means that when there is some aspect of court etiquette that might be plot relevant, the character likely knows it. And 'likely' not 'guaranteed' unless it is something really simple like desert fork vs salad fork.
Anyway, the reason I think the UA Origins version is more freeing to the player and DM, even without that sort of advice, is: they have removed the burden of coming up with mechanical "features" from the creative process. All of that has now been encapsulated in the feat/ASIs/proficiencies/whatever, and folks can write background narratives without needing to be game designers. If they are designers, they (the player or DM) could probably come up with good stuff (and that can be the DM's prerogative), but "make up your own background" no longer requires that real-life skill.
Thing is, I see that as 'without being burdened with having any idea what, if any, meaning the background has.' Again, as if being just tossed somewhere completely unrelated to your background far enough away that it becomes nothing more than just a cool story.
There were always skill and /or tool proficiencies and languages attached to backgrounds. So that 'without needing to be game designers' bit (which begs the question as to whether DM's are only supposed to use stock worlds), comes across as 'too much work, so they get nothing.' (And that impression is also why I had the 'nothing always fails' reaction earlier in this discussion). I get the sense that you do not actually mean it that way, though?
Correct, I don't mean it that way. I'm going to break it down a little bit:
Personally, I don't think that something needs a game mechanic in order to have "meaning." Actually, I very strongly disagree with that, but we don't need to argue about it; it's a matter of taste. I can understand why you feel that way.
"too much work, so they get nothing" -> well, no, the "feature" has been replaced by a whole-ass feat! And the first level feat list (which I assume we've only seen part of) is already pretty flexible.
As it happens, I think the 1st level feats make for a much better powerset than the 2014 background features, in part because they've been designed and balanced better. (Again, a matter of taste, of course.)
Here's a quick-and-dirty example background (very quick, as this is just a forum post and not a character I'm about to play):
My mother was a knight (so I have Athletics proficiency), and my father was a successful merchant (so I have Persuasion proficiency). I grew up in a castle, and we had a locksmith on retainer who also tutored me when I was growing up (so I have Thieves' Tools proficiency). There was a Druid who helped all the nearby farmers grow their crops, whom I used to spend lots of time following around (so I have Magic Initiate (Primal)). After I came of age, I took up with a band of Dwarves (so I know Dwarven) and started to learn to be a Paladin...
Most of that is pretty trite (I'm not spending time on it), and I really don't like when a DM tries to make me justify every skill/whatever with my heritage (bleh). But it should at least cover the basic idea of my story bits having meaning, yet me not having to write new mechanics for that meaning.
"which begsraises the question as to whether DM's are only supposed to use stock worlds" -> some do, some don't. Some write a bunch of new mechanics, some don't. It's perfectly possible to have a custom world with stock rules. Not every DM wants to write custom worlds, not every DM wants to write custom rules, and not every player wants to write custom rules.
It is also perfectly fine for any given DM to say "We are not using that part of the rules." That includes not using the 2014 background features.
As for your quick and dirty background,
your mother... was a knight? Is she dead now or retired? Was her title stripped or is knight just an informal military station rather than a noble rank in that society? If you trained with the military (for your athletics) or at least grew up in barracks, what connections do you have with the military? Anyone there who mentors you or would help you out in a pinch? Are you beholden to the military? Even if you are not on active duty, could they call you into service?
Grew up in a castle. Whose? What is your character's relationship to them? There is a druid that you know well enough to have learned some of their craft from them. Surly they are relevant in any ongoing adventures, even if just for consultation purposes. You just 'took up with a band of Dwarves.' Is it their castle then? Was your mother in their service? Who are they, exactly? If it isn't their castle, do they live there or are they some sort of mercenary unit the castle's owner hired? Since you learned paladinhood through them, they seem some sort of formal order with an oath....or did you become a paladin independently, somehow?
And other than 'Son of a knight' it sounds like there was not much especially noteworthy about your character's background. Apparently, your character just worked out until meeting the dwarves and becoming a paladin. They learned nothing of military protocols from their mother and nothing of farming from the druid. The dwarves seem just a random bunch of dwarves, nothing deeper to them. Are those aspects of your background not worthy of any deeper thought? Are those not topics for your DM to consider and discuss with you?
Or is your character just some guy with stats who just happens to be there, learned as little as possible growing up and have no emotional connections to those you have actually learned from along the way?
Again, tables where they want mostly tactical challenges and computer game style, stats on paper style growth, they could of course ignore such questions, but for those who do like the idea of more, why shouldn't there be some guidance for them?
So what you're saying is that players don't necessarily need Plot Coupons, they need hundred-page dossiers detailing every single person they've ever met, the precise and exact position, role, and responsibilities of every single one of those people in society, the exact degree to which the character is indebted to or holds debt from each of those people, the precise attitude each and every person the character has ever met holds towards the character, an hour-by-hour timeline of the character's entire life prior to campaign start...
No.
If you can't fit everything truly relevant to your low-level character's background on a single page, you'd better have a fantastic gorram reason why you can't. And note that these Plot Coupons you've spent thirty-two pages championing ALSO do nothing to answer your absurdly exhaustive list of Must-Know Background Minutiae. They occasionally pay lip service by saying "work with your DM", but if ALL THAT is what you're fishing for in the base rules? That's a dramatically unreasonable burden to put on the average player and you know it.
If you are not going to discuss in good faith, just stop. Please cite ANY example I have given or even any of the 2014 features that require more than a couple contact names.
Nor does "The character has a sense of court etiquette' equal "DM must write everything to do with court etiquette out in detail." It just means that when there is some aspect of court etiquette that might be plot relevant, the character likely knows it. And 'likely' not 'guaranteed' unless it is something really simple like desert fork vs salad fork.
Anyway, the reason I think the UA Origins version is more freeing to the player and DM, even without that sort of advice, is: they have removed the burden of coming up with mechanical "features" from the creative process. All of that has now been encapsulated in the feat/ASIs/proficiencies/whatever, and folks can write background narratives without needing to be game designers. If they are designers, they (the player or DM) could probably come up with good stuff (and that can be the DM's prerogative), but "make up your own background" no longer requires that real-life skill.
Thing is, I see that as 'without being burdened with having any idea what, if any, meaning the background has.' Again, as if being just tossed somewhere completely unrelated to your background far enough away that it becomes nothing more than just a cool story.
There were always skill and /or tool proficiencies and languages attached to backgrounds. So that 'without needing to be game designers' bit (which begs the question as to whether DM's are only supposed to use stock worlds), comes across as 'too much work, so they get nothing.' (And that impression is also why I had the 'nothing always fails' reaction earlier in this discussion). I get the sense that you do not actually mean it that way, though?
Correct, I don't mean it that way. I'm going to break it down a little bit:
Personally, I don't think that something needs a game mechanic in order to have "meaning." Actually, I very strongly disagree with that, but we don't need to argue about it; it's a matter of taste. I can understand why you feel that way.
"too much work, so they get nothing" -> well, no, the "feature" has been replaced by a whole-ass feat! And the first level feat list (which I assume we've only seen part of) is already pretty flexible.
As it happens, I think the 1st level feats make for a much better powerset than the 2014 background features, in part because they've been designed and balanced better. (Again, a matter of taste, of course.)
Here's a quick-and-dirty example background (very quick, as this is just a forum post and not a character I'm about to play):
My mother was a knight (so I have Athletics proficiency), and my father was a successful merchant (so I have Persuasion proficiency). I grew up in a castle, and we had a locksmith on retainer who also tutored me when I was growing up (so I have Thieves' Tools proficiency). There was a Druid who helped all the nearby farmers grow their crops, whom I used to spend lots of time following around (so I have Magic Initiate (Primal)). After I came of age, I took up with a band of Dwarves (so I know Dwarven) and started to learn to be a Paladin...
Most of that is pretty trite (I'm not spending time on it), and I really don't like when a DM tries to make me justify every skill/whatever with my heritage (bleh). But it should at least cover the basic idea of my story bits having meaning, yet me not having to write new mechanics for that meaning.
"which begsraises the question as to whether DM's are only supposed to use stock worlds" -> some do, some don't. Some write a bunch of new mechanics, some don't. It's perfectly possible to have a custom world with stock rules. Not every DM wants to write custom worlds, not every DM wants to write custom rules, and not every player wants to write custom rules.
It is also perfectly fine for any given DM to say "We are not using that part of the rules." That includes not using the 2014 background features.
As for your quick and dirty background,
your mother... was a knight? Is she dead now or retired? Was her title stripped or is knight just an informal military station rather than a noble rank in that society? If you trained with the military (for your athletics) or at least grew up in barracks, what connections do you have with the military? Anyone there who mentors you or would help you out in a pinch? Are you beholden to the military? Even if you are not on active duty, could they call you into service?
Grew up in a castle. Whose? What is your character's relationship to them? There is a druid that you know well enough to have learned some of their craft from them. Surly they are relevant in any ongoing adventures, even if just for consultation purposes. You just 'took up with a band of Dwarves.' Is it their castle then? Was your mother in their service? Who are they, exactly? If it isn't their castle, do they live there or are they some sort of mercenary unit the castle's owner hired? Since you learned paladinhood through them, they seem some sort of formal order with an oath....or did you become a paladin independently, somehow?
And other than 'Son of a knight' it sounds like there was not much especially noteworthy about your character's background. Apparently, your character just worked out until meeting the dwarves and becoming a paladin. They learned nothing of military protocols from their mother and nothing of farming from the druid. The dwarves seem just a random bunch of dwarves, nothing deeper to them. Are those aspects of your background not worthy of any deeper thought? Are those not topics for your DM to consider and discuss with you?
Or is your character just some guy with stats who just happens to be there, learned as little as possible growing up and have no emotional connections to those you have actually learned from along the way?
Again, tables where they want mostly tactical challenges and computer game style, stats on paper style growth, they could of course ignore such questions, but for those who do like the idea of more, why shouldn't there be some guidance for them?
?
When playing D&D, it is not uncommon for some players to have a strong sense of oppositionfor oppositions sake in general, a desire to challenge and push, test and stress the nature of the bounds of the world in which they are adventuring.
Oft times, they will do so for the sole purpose of being challenging -- it is how they, personally, find fun in the game. They are unconcerned about logic, or reason, and have little interest in proving a point -- they are doing it for the purity of the act of arguing. They might shift the sides arguments they use or even outright deny arguments they have made, or siderail one argument into a dozen others.
A lot of the time these folks are lumped in with Rules lawyers, but they aren't quite the same, and D&D has a long and wonderful history of them being present. RUn an open game where no one is turned away long enough, and you will become very familiar with them.
Arguments about backgrounds and what goes into them are a long standing debate within the broader community as well. SOme DMs find them essential utterly indispensable, and others find them bothersome, cumbersome, and useless. Much of it comes down to the question of play style or depth of character or the degree of verisimilitude within the world as a whole.
Because backgrounds in 5e are intentionally designed and intended to be starting points, not outright in depth fixtures, and are intended to guide role playing and to provide it with some degree of reward as a result, they are ripe for all manner of such.
I recently had a discussion about backgrounds -- I am presently unable to comment further upon that, as penalties were accrued. But it did highlight some points, such as a strong degree of intentional indifference to normative forms of communication, a disregard and disrespect of others engaged as doing so conflicts with the core goal, and most interestingly, a bit of highlighted awareness on my part about how little a difference it would make overall, since the principal goal of the thread itself is to explain how the structure of the 2024 UA Origins background system operates.
Which is fairly simple, and once that was achieved, it devolved into endless discourse over the particular value of one form or another, precisely structured to create a sense of frustration and open mouthed shock. Yet what is the value of such?
Truly?
The UA feedback was given, and has long since been analyzed, and so we know that the system is going to operate in such a manner and arguing about how it should operate is ultimately going to fall to the individual table, and arguments about how it should be done have the same direct effect or importance as discussing the sports ball game the day after it was played by people who couldn't even perform the task of playing sports ball.
Your question, seeking to find out how those two opposing views can be reconciled, sparked this thought within me, and in analyzing them, the essential reconciliation comes down to "this is how everyone should do things in their own game".
It is the only likely manner in which to reconcile those two opposing viewpoints, and as there is unlikely to be any rational attempt to do so, we are only left with such speculation. Nor is this kind of thing uncommon -- again, as I noted, this sort of thing is fairly common to a certain degree, as there are players whose primary form of enjoyment comes from such.
THis, however, is not a gaming table, and so it is far less disruptive to allow it here than it would be at a game table, even with the caveats in place.
How would I handle such a set up? Well, I previously described it. Long before the background UA had come out and independently of the game, I created a system of enabling a character to come from or enter into nobility, and an entire structure for nobility that is markedly different from what one might expect -- one could readily argue it was intentionally created to disrupt the bias of common expectations, and one would be right to argue so.
As a result, those questions asked are empty and worthless, having little to do with nobility on the world, and because it is something foreign to the experience of many people, it makes the task of asking many of those questions moot -- but, oddly enough, means that I don't have to create much of the stuff that it is suggested be created or answered. This is one of the joys of D&D, imo/ime, because it allows someone such as I -- who spends hours and days and weeks and months and years looking at such preconceptions -- to apply that koweldg ein a way that does indeed subvert them or outright erase them of the typical meaning while still creating something that is interesting and different and can grab hold of the imagination and yet still free the entire process of character creation in relation to the worldscape and setting on which that character is created.
In looking at the approach and tools, in examining the large scale issues and concerns, it is fairly obvious that the designers are seeking to find a way to reach a sweet spot in terms of direction -- they very obviously think it is a bad idea to require or to suggest such greater details, but they also seek to provide some degree of gentle pointer should such be of use (and very obviously, it is a strong "depends on my mood" for the value of such re: the quotes you marked), and they are doing so with a greater degree of awareness and knowledge than is possessed by many, including those who might argue that they are not doing enough or they are doing too much, sometimes both.
So while thread drift is inevitable, sometimes said drift is not all that functional or useful, and it may exist for the sole purpose of tweaking the noses, even if the issue is a dead one.
No clue if you will find these insights of value -- but backgrounds are a valuable portion of the game, imo/ime, and I have a whole host of tools to help a player create and develop out a rich backstory that includes the use of backgrounds.
That was something in included in my responses -- as well as the idea of making them fit different time periods. I did suggest droppin the Feat portion, as I find the game is moving in a direction I dislike around that, but I am aware they will be unlikely to take that advice and that I, like the quoted individual represent a minority when it comes to some of my concerns.
That's all. I'm off and outta here.
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I am not married to calling them 'features' though. I am not married to them being treated as or presented as hard coded (and if anything have argued that I, personally, do not see them that way).
So now they're presented as.... nothing. Why have them then?
My counter is that I am going into more detail than really needed there just to explain why each of them.
An example of all that answered and condensed:
Mother was a knight. She retains her title, but being retired, has no active military ties. I learned athletics from her, but not her calling. I trained as a locksmith, so also have some sense of such laws... not sure when I'll ever use the legal knowledge, so I won't bore you with it here. Never know, though...
The castle was a border fortress, and I have a good sense of it and the lands immediately around here. Regs are pretty strict, but in a pinch or dire enough circumstances, the castellan would likely shelter me and any travelling with me. And old Grimsmoor.. I learned a lot from him. Druid who helps out the farmers. Learned a bit about farming, too. Again, won't bother you with the details unless it is ever important somehow... if we ever want to plant corn and rutabega in battle or the middle of nowhere or something, heh.
Oh, and then there's the Motley Crüe, or so they call themselves. Band of dwarves who have sworn an oath to Love, Drink and Music. I signed on with them and am now a full fledged paladin, out looking for adventure!
----------------
There you go. Only the druid has been personally named, the dwarves, collectively named and no detailed rules or laws or anything of the sort written or expected written.
Sounds great. What bearing did the coupon have on any of this?
Edit: And again, 'Coupon' is a term you lot have been using. Knowledge of farming and laws around locksmiths would come under that category, though. The druid, dwarves, mother and castellan being contacts would, too. They do not need to be massively powerful or anything, but should be at least acknowledged between player and DM as being actual things. Maybe they will never come up again. Maybe some will, maybe some aspect of the background will end up vitally important to plot. Ideally there will be at least some bridging there, although it need not be massive or anything.
'plot coupons' have been essential to this thread since it began as an effort to not derail further another thread with talk of background specific features. plot coupons are an assumption of concrete powers without concrete evaluation. the plot-adjacent justifications for concrete features are not plot coupons. so a background specific feature that included "usually knows their way around a lock and lock picks" but does not offer a proficiency would be a plot coupon. whereas "lived in a house where the doorknobs and locks often malfunctioned," is exposition and, if it's not in a feature, is not a plot coupon. similarly, the combination of "a family friend taught me lockpicking" and "feature: tool proficiency: thieves tools" are also not a plot coupon. would anyone dispute this? moving on.
I am not married to calling them 'features' though. I am not married to them being treated as or presented as hard coded (and if anything have argued that I, personally, do not see them that way).
So now they're presented as.... nothing. Why have them then?
My counter is that I am going into more detail than really needed there just to explain why each of them.
An example of all that answered and condensed:
Mother was a knight. She retains her title, but being retired, has no active military ties. I learned athletics from her, but not her calling. I trained as a locksmith, so also have some sense of such laws... not sure when I'll ever use the legal knowledge, so I won't bore you with it here. Never know, though...
The castle was a border fortress, and I have a good sense of it and the lands immediately around here. Regs are pretty strict, but in a pinch or dire enough circumstances, the castellan would likely shelter me and any travelling with me. And old Grimsmoor.. I learned a lot from him. Druid who helps out the farmers. Learned a bit about farming, too. Again, won't bother you with the details unless it is ever important somehow... if we ever want to plant corn and rutabega in battle or the middle of nowhere or something, heh.
Oh, and then there's the Motley Crüe, or so they call themselves. Band of dwarves who have sworn an oath to Love, Drink and Music. I signed on with them and am now a full fledged paladin, out looking for adventure!
----------------
There you go. Only the druid has been personally named, the dwarves, collectively named and no detailed rules or laws or anything of the sort written or expected written.
Sounds great. What bearing did the coupon have on any of this?
Where have I said anything either way in that post about how the concept would be presented in the 2024 PHB? I would put a discussion of the topic under a heading such as "Bringing it all together" or "Making Backgrounds Matter" or some such, then discuss the general concept of things like the various contacts, laws regarding locksmiths and farming knowledge in that example. That is where the old so called 'coupons' had bearing.
Although, frankly if that example was used, I would have the DM suggest that the mother became a locksmith on retirement and she was where he learned that trade from, simplifying it a little further.
this is a thread discussing the presentation of the 2024 PHB in a forums folder about playtests. it's within that context that people would assume you'd rewrite an admittedly (intentionally?) slap-dash background paragraph into 3+ paragraphs.
the only evidence i recall of backgrounds failing to matter from this thread was in two parts: 1.) the assumption that UA Origins backgrounds of reduced size were final product , and 2.) word meanings dissected and hairs split (reminiscent of "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is") to front minor outrage for 'meaningless' backgrounds. part 1 dealt heavily in the fate of background specific 'features' with no numbers or proficiencies in them. coupons.
also... "Make Backgrounds Great Again!" ? ...nah, more thinking required...
Where have I said anything either way in that post about how the concept would be presented in the 2024 PHB? I would put a discussion of the topic under a heading such as "Bringing it all together" or "Making Backgrounds Matter" or some such, then discuss the general concept of things like the various contacts, laws regarding locksmiths and farming knowledge in that example. That is where the old so called 'coupons' had bearing.
Although, frankly if that example was used, I would have the DM suggest that the mother became a locksmith on retirement and she was where he learned that trade from, simplifying it a little further.
Why wouldn't we be talking about the 2024 PHB? This is the UA forum; moreover, the presentation/space that backgrounds take up is ultimately material to their design.
Edit: And again, 'Coupon' is a term you lot have been using. Knowledge of farming and laws around locksmiths would come under that category, though. The druid, dwarves, mother and castellan being contacts would, too. They do not need to be massively powerful or anything, but should be at least acknowledged between player and DM as being actual things. Maybe they will never come up again. Maybe some will, maybe some aspect of the background will end up vitally important to plot. Ideally there will be at least some bridging there, although it need not be massive or anything.
None of that needs to be spelled out in the background itself. A general statement like "consider how you gained the skills you selected in your background, as well as the environment you grew up in" is sufficient prompt for all of these considerations, and takes up a lot less space because it applies to all of them at once.
It also doesn't handcuff the player and DM to any one specific background, or interpretation or permutation of what that background entails. "Mother was a retired knight and taught me athletics, and also I learned farming/lockpicking/local laws/performing" can be literally any background + Skilled.
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Ok sure, but think holistically here. When redesigning a system, nothing should be held so sacred that it cannot change because that only leads to stagnation and a stop in progress to a state which might be better for the end users. If you look at the UA system, the function of the 2014 style Background Features is there and has been preserved. They're just not called the Background Features anymore. The name has shifted to encompass the mechanical bits of the character and only the mechanical bits of the character. The other parts, the freeform narrative bits that are still significant and have mechanical gameplay have been shifted to the backstory section, which is clearly indicated by the kinds of guiding questions the Origins documents has the player consider when making their character.
So I think there is discussion of that sort in the UA document, but that is a qualified answer. Here's what I mean ... I think that the questions about how the Background affect the character's abilities, skills, and feats are exactly that kind of discussion you are hoping for because they are questions designed to get the player to think about how the backstory directs those things that have the most clear affect on gameplay: stats.
As for the effects of the narrative story details like allies and social factions, I think that might actually also belong more in the realm of the DM/player negotiation rather than requiring harder rules. After all I think for the rules to start to try and dictate the specific effects of roleplay heavy details would be for them to start to intrude on the DM prerogative of creating their own world. But then again, the DMG does have those optional Social rules, so maybe that's where this belongs?
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!
everything that is written within a 2014 background is useful to that background and meaningful in gameplay to someone who feels their character has had that experience. even so, the meaningful gameplay benefits that 2014 PHB background feats provide are roleplay benefits. no rules function, no way to evaluate how an NPC you don't know would choose to interpret the site of you, but not no value. a noble might be dragged away from his local and his privilege to the underdark and yet even still that noble's background continues to inform their actions even when the feature has been effectively nullified. backgrounds are meaningful. situations can change and experiences can be different, but the background is still there to be a lens and a tool for the player.
the sailor knows how to board a ship properly and politely to avoid being thrown off. meaningful in roleplay.
the wildspacer does not have disadvantage on her melee attacks in zero gravity. concrete benefit. meaningful in roleplay too, why not.
...makes you wonder if 2014 background specific feats could all have been converted to concrete benefits. like giving the sailor advantage in negotiating fares, insight into the trustworthiness of a crew they've just met, etc...
edit: or like that, sure. more of a "as a sailor you've likely got confidence in matters of..."
the player meshing with the dm's world thing is somewhat assumed. as it's often been said: it's the dm's responsibility to get you into the world, but it's the player's responsibility to find a plausible reason to stay there.
having said all that, have you seen those Baldur's Gate backgrounds? the only thing i noticed changing was the features, but they're a great example of customization. for instance the noble Feature: Position of Privilege changes to the Baldur's Gate Feature: Patriar. what a great example of expectations for a noble for a specific place that is not Waterdeep! many benefits that come across as concrete while not saying a word about to evaluate them (and therefore can't be rules (but nonetheless not meaningless)). like how the corrupt guards can tell you apart from a foreign noble, spy, merchant, well-dressed-adventurer-with-a-coin-to-flip, etc. (signet ring, maybe? yeah, those can't be faked lol). not meaningless, but definitely an expectation the dm will have to manage. speaking of guards, soldiers include the benefit of walking through gates without question... while on patrol. go check out the Baldur's Gate Gazetteer asap. sometimes these things are only offered a limited time. kinda weird they didn't update these to the 2024 standard of feats (point to you), but worth mentioning since i haven't seen it come up in the thread yet.
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, so general guidelines about how narratively established truths can affect gameplay, yes that does seem like something that would be helpful. I'm scanning the general guidelines for the 2014 Backgrounds though, and I'm also not seeing something like that. So it sounds like a wish list for any game system in general and not a particular critique of the Origins UA?
Ok so those are discrete things that we can look at individually, right? A Sage's research feature depicts a person who not only knows things, but knows things about knowing things. Obviously this can be mechanically represented with a good Intelligence score and proficiency in the knowledge skills, but beyond that, you also want some guidance on getting the player and the DM thinking about their significance and impact on the campaign? Well I think the guiding questions of "Where did they spend most of their time? What did they do for a living? What capabilities and possessions did they acquire?" could definitely work if you answer something like: I spent most of my time in the Royal Archives. I made my living copying and scribing histories. This gave me a broad scope of knowledge regarding all the official news and history that made it's way to the information networks of my kingdom.
And with those answers you have built a character who not only knows things, but knows things about knowing things. Yes, it is somewhat limited in scope to news that came in to that particular kingdom, whatever kingdom the character comes from as per the discussion between the player and the DM, but this is better than the all inclusive superpower that it used to be because it is more tailored and more controlled than the 2014 Sage Feature.
It puts more control into the collective hands of the player and the DM while at the same time allowing them more creative freedom than something that is a niche as the 2014 style BG Feature.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
...
And I just demonstrated how the guidelines from the UA do it better.
Yes, what you're saying matches my description of someone who not only knows things, but knows things about knowing things.
As a mechanical ability a player has every right to expect that the power works on everything every time. Even if the DM rules that it cannot be found, as the power says they might, the power still allows you to know where and from whom to obtain the information because those two conditions are not mutually exclusive. If you shift this feature to simply be part of the roleplay suggestions and not a concrete mechanic, it prevents weird edge cases like the Sage who somehow know who to speak to to get knowledge about something for which they by all right shouldn't have that lead per the DM's reality.
Another example that fits within the text of the 2014 Sage Feature is if the DM has created a secret in their setting that literally no one knows and which the characters are meant to discover. The Sage character can rightly ask that they know where to look for that secret and whom to ask and the rules don't allow for the DM to simply say no. The most they can say is, "You somehow know that you would need to go to X and ask Y even though those things are impossible to find" according to the rules. Now any DM with even a little experience will just say no, but that contravenes what the 2014 PHB says. Something easy to fix ... and fix it is what the UA does.
And the way the UA would handle this is slightly different and I think more customized and tailored for each individual 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!
It never occurred to me to try and count them. It probably wouldn't be good for my mental health.
Ahh, thank you.
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 laid out my demonstration, not just a empty declaration. If you disagreed with it, you could at least disagree with the actual content. But you really haven't been participating in this conversation in good faith anyway, so I don't know what I'm expecting.
And none of those is how the Sage superpower is designed. There is no roll, no chance, it just works like it says it does.
Which is a strawman, since there is no example of having nothing. I very clearly demonstrated how the UA replaces the Sage feature, but you're just not engaging. That's ok, you can just go on as you've been doing. I think it's been made clear how little you're actually willing to engage in valid discussion rather than using shady tactics just to justify your stance when you could have just said from the beginning that you simply like what you like.
Have fun with that, I don't think I will feed you anymore.
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!
Basically. It doesn't matter how often we demonstrate that there's still plenty of room for guidance and character building suggestions, that the new rules even in their basic, incomplete testing state can accomplish the same end. If it isn't this exact thing, if it isn't forty prebuilt backgrounds taking up thirty pages of book with nebulous, ill-defined Plot Coupon "Features" nobody has any green goddamn clue how to replicate that players have to pick between? It's Simply Not Good Enough, and it never can or will be. We're thirty pages and over a year deep now, still trying to prove to the same people that the new system doesn't lose anything that was worth keeping. It's maddening, but such is the Internet, I guess
Please do not contact or message me.
Kotath, you NEED TO STOP invoking Rule Zero as a justification of Plot Coupon superpowers. You cannot argue that players and DMs both are floundering helplessly, completely unable to figure out how to make backgrounds work without hard-coded Plot Coupon "Examples" to grind their nose in, while also claiming that the exact same players and DMs are *clearly* too intelligent and experienced to dogmatically follow those Plot Coupons even when doing so makes no damn sense.
You do not, can not, have it both ways. Either players and DMs are too stupid to know how to D&D without Plot Coupons and thus will follow the Plot Coupons as dogmatically as they follow the initiative or attack roll rules, or players and DMs are able to adapt on the fly to ensure their tale continues to unfold properly - at which point they do not and never have needed Plot Coupons to make it happen.
One or the other of those *must* be true by your reckoning, you CAN NOT claim Rule Zero is a justification of Plot Coupons.
Please do not contact or message me.
You could just ask the mods to lock the thread. Then maybe send a nice tweet to Mr. Crawford about how good the first UA background rules were.
...
Oh, a test. I'm gonna state my opinion:
The 2014 background rules are pretty bad, because the "features" set is poorly designed and lacks any sense of game balance. Also, they fail to give much guidance or structure to making custom background features.
Meanwhile, the UA Origins background rules are excellent, and the single best thing in all of the UAs. They give every character a feat, which was sorely needed, provide a full design system for every mechanical choice, and explicitly present all the example backgrounds as the result of that system. This means the examples are, themselves, excellent guidance for the "design" of backgrounds, while still freeing the player and DM to easily create what they want for the narrative bits. If the player or DM wants the narrative bits to directly conect to the mechanical bits, they can, or they can ignore those potential connections as they see fit. Everything gets to have meaning (if you want it).
...
Let's see if someone comes along and tries to nitpick my opinion to death.
look, if you want to shape the 2024 DMG/PHB guidance for building campaigns that loop in backgrounds, as you seem to indicate that you do, then you'll have to start a new thread with that explicit purpose. leave behind discussion of what constitutes 'guidance,' 'concrete,' 'nits,' etc. strongly recommended that you find a way to frame your new exploration of topics without any mention of 2014 background features at all, if you can help it. just to avoid any hint of ...what's a good word? someone said fanaticism?
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!
(trimmed things down a bit)
OK, this could be constructive.
The UA is just a playtest document (really a "playtest" since the UA format doesn't match what I think of as a full RPG playtest, and I expect they'll be doing the real playtesting in-house with NDAs). Notice how, for example, none of the UA documents have said anything about rope or pitons or other climbing equipment, nor anything about how Athletics is used for climbing. Yet, no-one is up in arms about 2024 D&D removing climbing from the game... This is (probably) because they aren't changing anything with those rules, or just aren't focusing on them yet. I think the same is true for more detailed advice on character creation and story. In particular, I wouldn't be surprised if they were keeping (or at least streamlining) the traits/ideals/bonds/flaws stuff, but aren't bothering (re)writing it into the UA documents, because it wouldn't be worth the time, when they want playtesters to focus on the new mechanics. Note that nothing has said they are replacing that system.
Similarly, the PHB is definitely gonna have a set of questions the player should answer about their character background and personality. Some of them showed up in the UA document, but there will be a whole chapter or so devoted to this. The UA also says "This D&D material is in draft form, usable in your D&D campaign but not refined by full game development and editing."
Anyway, the reason I think the UA Origins version is more freeing to the player and DM, even without that sort of advice, is: they have removed the burden of coming up with mechanical "features" from the creative process. All of that has now been encapsulated in the feat/ASIs/proficiencies/whatever, and folks can write background narratives without needing to be game designers. If they are designers, they (the player or DM) could probably come up with good stuff (and that can be the DM's prerogative), but "make up your own background" no longer requires that real-life skill.
Correct, I don't mean it that way. I'm going to break it down a little bit:
Here's a quick-and-dirty example background (very quick, as this is just a forum post and not a character I'm about to play):
My mother was a knight (so I have Athletics proficiency), and my father was a successful merchant (so I have Persuasion proficiency). I grew up in a castle, and we had a locksmith on retainer who also tutored me when I was growing up (so I have Thieves' Tools proficiency). There was a Druid who helped all the nearby farmers grow their crops, whom I used to spend lots of time following around (so I have Magic Initiate (Primal)). After I came of age, I took up with a band of Dwarves (so I know Dwarven) and started to learn to be a Paladin...
Most of that is pretty trite (I'm not spending time on it), and I really don't like when a DM tries to make me justify every skill/whatever with my heritage (bleh). But it should at least cover the basic idea of my story bits having meaning, yet me not having to write new mechanics for that meaning.
"which
begsraises the question as to whether DM's are only supposed to use stock worlds" -> some do, some don't. Some write a bunch of new mechanics, some don't. It's perfectly possible to have a custom world with stock rules. Not every DM wants to write custom worlds, not every DM wants to write custom rules, and not every player wants to write custom rules.I do believe, and I know Yurei believes as well, that different people can have different thought patterns. But the printed game does not have to, and indeed cannot, perfectly cater to every single way of thinking or viewpoint, and it would be foolish of them to try. This is especially true when different thought processes, ways of reading the rules, and priorities are mutually exclusive.
More importantly - the coupons you're championing are not a prerequisite to characters having "actual lives before the campaign." Roleplay prompts that get players thinking about their lives before the campaign are totally fine. Giving those prompts the implied force of law (e.g. by calling them "features" that the player is therefore entitled to) are not. Your insistence that your opponents are against characters having lives and connections before the campaign starts is nothing but a strawman, and does nothing save undermine your own points.
So what you're saying is that players don't necessarily need Plot Coupons, they need hundred-page dossiers detailing every single person they've ever met, the precise and exact position, role, and responsibilities of every single one of those people in society, the exact degree to which the character is indebted to or holds debt from each of those people, the precise attitude each and every person the character has ever met holds towards the character, an hour-by-hour timeline of the character's entire life prior to campaign start...
No.
If you can't fit everything truly relevant to your low-level character's background on a single page, you'd better have a fantastic gorram reason why you can't. And note that these Plot Coupons you've spent thirty-two pages championing ALSO do nothing to answer your absurdly exhaustive list of Must-Know Background Minutiae. They occasionally pay lip service by saying "work with your DM", but if ALL THAT is what you're fishing for in the base rules? That's a dramatically unreasonable burden to put on the average player and you know it.
Please do not contact or message me.
Again, if I were actually building a character, I would spend actual time on these and other questions. But I'm not, so I didn't. Well, also, I'm not a fan of pretentious DMs and their pretentious detail-mongering ;) so I didn't focus on the details.
But wait (I ask, already bracing for the bait-and-switch?), I thought I was demonstrating "meaning" by showing mechanical game impact of my story choices, thus using your defintion of "meaning." Which is why I didn't bother with all the emotional connection stuff, which is normally 100% of meaning for me. Which is it that's important again? Both?
you: not "DM must write everything..."
also you:
?
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!
When playing D&D, it is not uncommon for some players to have a strong sense of opposition for oppositions sake in general, a desire to challenge and push, test and stress the nature of the bounds of the world in which they are adventuring.
Oft times, they will do so for the sole purpose of being challenging -- it is how they, personally, find fun in the game. They are unconcerned about logic, or reason, and have little interest in proving a point -- they are doing it for the purity of the act of arguing. They might shift the sides arguments they use or even outright deny arguments they have made, or siderail one argument into a dozen others.
A lot of the time these folks are lumped in with Rules lawyers, but they aren't quite the same, and D&D has a long and wonderful history of them being present. RUn an open game where no one is turned away long enough, and you will become very familiar with them.
Arguments about backgrounds and what goes into them are a long standing debate within the broader community as well. SOme DMs find them essential utterly indispensable, and others find them bothersome, cumbersome, and useless. Much of it comes down to the question of play style or depth of character or the degree of verisimilitude within the world as a whole.
Because backgrounds in 5e are intentionally designed and intended to be starting points, not outright in depth fixtures, and are intended to guide role playing and to provide it with some degree of reward as a result, they are ripe for all manner of such.
I recently had a discussion about backgrounds -- I am presently unable to comment further upon that, as penalties were accrued. But it did highlight some points, such as a strong degree of intentional indifference to normative forms of communication, a disregard and disrespect of others engaged as doing so conflicts with the core goal, and most interestingly, a bit of highlighted awareness on my part about how little a difference it would make overall, since the principal goal of the thread itself is to explain how the structure of the 2024 UA Origins background system operates.
Which is fairly simple, and once that was achieved, it devolved into endless discourse over the particular value of one form or another, precisely structured to create a sense of frustration and open mouthed shock. Yet what is the value of such?
Truly?
The UA feedback was given, and has long since been analyzed, and so we know that the system is going to operate in such a manner and arguing about how it should operate is ultimately going to fall to the individual table, and arguments about how it should be done have the same direct effect or importance as discussing the sports ball game the day after it was played by people who couldn't even perform the task of playing sports ball.
Your question, seeking to find out how those two opposing views can be reconciled, sparked this thought within me, and in analyzing them, the essential reconciliation comes down to "this is how everyone should do things in their own game".
It is the only likely manner in which to reconcile those two opposing viewpoints, and as there is unlikely to be any rational attempt to do so, we are only left with such speculation. Nor is this kind of thing uncommon -- again, as I noted, this sort of thing is fairly common to a certain degree, as there are players whose primary form of enjoyment comes from such.
THis, however, is not a gaming table, and so it is far less disruptive to allow it here than it would be at a game table, even with the caveats in place.
How would I handle such a set up? Well, I previously described it. Long before the background UA had come out and independently of the game, I created a system of enabling a character to come from or enter into nobility, and an entire structure for nobility that is markedly different from what one might expect -- one could readily argue it was intentionally created to disrupt the bias of common expectations, and one would be right to argue so.
As a result, those questions asked are empty and worthless, having little to do with nobility on the world, and because it is something foreign to the experience of many people, it makes the task of asking many of those questions moot -- but, oddly enough, means that I don't have to create much of the stuff that it is suggested be created or answered. This is one of the joys of D&D, imo/ime, because it allows someone such as I -- who spends hours and days and weeks and months and years looking at such preconceptions -- to apply that koweldg ein a way that does indeed subvert them or outright erase them of the typical meaning while still creating something that is interesting and different and can grab hold of the imagination and yet still free the entire process of character creation in relation to the worldscape and setting on which that character is created.
In looking at the approach and tools, in examining the large scale issues and concerns, it is fairly obvious that the designers are seeking to find a way to reach a sweet spot in terms of direction -- they very obviously think it is a bad idea to require or to suggest such greater details, but they also seek to provide some degree of gentle pointer should such be of use (and very obviously, it is a strong "depends on my mood" for the value of such re: the quotes you marked), and they are doing so with a greater degree of awareness and knowledge than is possessed by many, including those who might argue that they are not doing enough or they are doing too much, sometimes both.
So while thread drift is inevitable, sometimes said drift is not all that functional or useful, and it may exist for the sole purpose of tweaking the noses, even if the issue is a dead one.
No clue if you will find these insights of value -- but backgrounds are a valuable portion of the game, imo/ime, and I have a whole host of tools to help a player create and develop out a rich backstory that includes the use of backgrounds.
That was something in included in my responses -- as well as the idea of making them fit different time periods. I did suggest droppin the Feat portion, as I find the game is moving in a direction I dislike around that, but I am aware they will be unlikely to take that advice and that I, like the quoted individual represent a minority when it comes to some of my concerns.
That's all. I'm off and outta here.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
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So now they're presented as.... nothing. Why have them then?
Sounds great. What bearing did the coupon have on any of this?
'plot coupons' have been essential to this thread since it began as an effort to not derail further another thread with talk of background specific features. plot coupons are an assumption of concrete powers without concrete evaluation. the plot-adjacent justifications for concrete features are not plot coupons. so a background specific feature that included "usually knows their way around a lock and lock picks" but does not offer a proficiency would be a plot coupon. whereas "lived in a house where the doorknobs and locks often malfunctioned," is exposition and, if it's not in a feature, is not a plot coupon. similarly, the combination of "a family friend taught me lockpicking" and "feature: tool proficiency: thieves tools" are also not a plot coupon. would anyone dispute this? moving on.
this is a thread discussing the presentation of the 2024 PHB in a forums folder about playtests. it's within that context that people would assume you'd rewrite an admittedly (intentionally?) slap-dash background paragraph into 3+ paragraphs.
the only evidence i recall of backgrounds failing to matter from this thread was in two parts: 1.) the assumption that UA Origins backgrounds of reduced size were final product , and 2.) word meanings dissected and hairs split (reminiscent of "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is") to front minor outrage for 'meaningless' backgrounds. part 1 dealt heavily in the fate of background specific 'features' with no numbers or proficiencies in them. coupons.
also... "Make Backgrounds Great Again!" ? ...nah, more thinking required...
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!
Why wouldn't we be talking about the 2024 PHB? This is the UA forum; moreover, the presentation/space that backgrounds take up is ultimately material to their design.
None of that needs to be spelled out in the background itself. A general statement like "consider how you gained the skills you selected in your background, as well as the environment you grew up in" is sufficient prompt for all of these considerations, and takes up a lot less space because it applies to all of them at once.
It also doesn't handcuff the player and DM to any one specific background, or interpretation or permutation of what that background entails. "Mother was a retired knight and taught me athletics, and also I learned farming/lockpicking/local laws/performing" can be literally any background + Skilled.