You have convinced me that we should not have backgrounds, just floating options.There is nothing about background that everyone doesn’t get for free.
You have convinced me that we should not have backgrounds, just floating options.There is nothing about background that everyone doesn’t get for free.
Yes. Everyone did fine with backgrounds not giving languages by default for eight years.What’s the alternative, not giving languages?
Five of the 13 do: Acolyte, Artisan, Hermit (?!), Noble, Outlander and Sage. Amazingly, Spy does not.You do know backgrounds already grant languages in the 2014 PHB, right?
I think background packages have a lot of potential -- my dad's bard is basically defined by his background as a pirate, and it led to a nice campaign centered on piracy.You have convinced me that we should not have backgrounds, just floating options.
"Veteran of the Goblin Wars," etc. That works.The solution is to reduce the number of differently-named backgrounds and instead provide several variations on a few.
E.g. here's a soldier that speaks Goblin and has proficiency in tinker's tools, and here's another Soldier who knows Abyssal and can play the lute. Give a short description of how each came by these elements.
That is the default. A “background” is just a set of those floating options you can take as a package, if you want to make one choice instead of several.You have convinced me that we should not have backgrounds, just floating options.
I'd love to see them make it very bold and clear that they expect people to make their own and then give only three examples. A number large enough to illustrate their process but small enough that no one can mistake the intention that they are only examples.The will be treated as default and standard, even if WotC writes "EXAMPLE -- PLEASE MAKE YOUR OWN INSTEAD" in big bold letters before each entry.
But let's step back one level: If you were to design backgrounds for the 2024 PHB, would you include a free language by default for each and every one of them?