D&D (2024) Bonus languages in One D&D backgrounds goes contrary to their other goals

[Jfdlsjfd]

"You were raised in a castle as a creature of wealth, power, and privilege—none of it earned. Your family are minor aristocrats who saw to it that you received a first-class education, some of which you appreciated and some of which you resented. (Was it truly necessary to read all those ancient histories in their original Draconic?) Your time in the castle, especially the many hours you spent observing your family at court, also taught you a great deal about leadership."

No, the writer is saying that history books are written in Draconic, not that this noble learned anything about arcana.

I mean, I do believe there would be dragons who would love to watch History Channel and yell about all the things they get wrong, because they were there, but I think the suggestion that Draconic is the language of history books is pretty goofy.

Draconic isn't implied to be the language of history books. If it were, the fluff wouldn't say "was it necessary to read in Draconic?" when the answer would be "yes, silly, draconic IS the language of history books." It's the language that were part of the specific curriculum designed by the teacher of the person holding this background, who resented being taught draconic instead of a perfectly useful language like elvish to woo the elvish girls, but no, all he got were crummy draconic lessons.

Is it a WONDERFUL example of a SMART way to include draconic in your backstory? Maybe not. It is, however, sufficent and I wouldn't ban a player from justifying having learnt Draconic this way if he came up with this background sample. What I accept from my wonderful players, I can tolerate from mere game designers at WotC.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

@Whizbang Dustyboots

Does "Noble of Drakewind Pass" (or some other draconic sounding place name) make it happier?

Yep.

Lack of specificity implies generality.

If this is supposed to be an example of a custom background, then it should be as specific as possible.

If it's supposed to be an example of a generic background, the elements included should be more generic. ("Choose a language" rather than "Draconic.")

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I think it would be consistent with their existing style which spells out, for instance "either a Short Rest or a Long Rest" every time, instead of just saying "after a rest."

They are going with Natural language here. If they don't specify they are using game term, a rest (including one that wouldn't qualify as either a Short or Long Rest) would be sufficent to refresh the power.

 

[Charlaquin]

It would be an extremely good change to label this as "Scion of Arkhosia," then, rather than "Noble."

That feels like a good move to me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What I accept from my wonderful players, I can tolerate from mere game designers at WotC.

Ooh, strong disagree. Your players don't have to do anything that make their ideas clear to you and you all just need to come with stuff that works for your table. I know the internet has really lowered expectations for professional writing, but professional writers should be held to a much higher standard.

Again, WotC's own current style prizes clarity above all else (do a search for the phrase "after a Short or Long Rest" on D&D Beyond, as a good example of them stylistically wearing a belt and suspenders at the same time, just so everyone's clear about recharge rules). This document is not up to that standard, even though its explicit purpose is for hundreds of thousands of people -- many of them not speaking English as a native language -- to read through it. They need to make it at least as clearly written as their standard publications.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yep.

Lack of specificity implies generality.

If this is supposed to be an example of a custom background, then it should be as specific as possible.

If it's supposed to be an example of a generic background, the elements included should be more generic. ("Choose a language" rather than "Draconic.")

I think under this new paradigm there is not meant to be any such thing as a “generic background.” Creating your own background is the default because they’re trying to acknowledge and honor the fact that each individual character’s background is unique. However, they also know that a lot of their players don’t want to have to make all those choices. They’d rather just pick a sample background and have it tell them what skills, tools, languages, etc. they know. So, they need to provide lots of examples those people can choose from and make small tweaks to if they feel the need.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Would anyone support the suggestion that the section about background being totally enriched by a few sentences so as to be linked to a specific character :

"Demokritos of Aurausius' background

Scion of a noble family, you were raised in a castle as a creature of wealth, power, and privilege—none of it earned. Your family are minor aristocrats who saw to it that you received a first-class education, some of which you appreciated and some of which you resented. (Was it truly necessary to read all those ancient histories in their original Draconic? That history teacher and court wizard was a boring man, except when he tried to teach actual battle strategy using chess pieces and minor illusion of the battle's location!) Your time in the castle, especially the many hours you spent observing your family at court, also taught you a great deal about leadership.

Resulting in the character picking +2 to Charisma and +1 to Intelligence, reflecting his rote learning and oratory lessons, draconic as a language, the skilled feat, history and persuasion, as well as proficency with gaming tools (chess). "

 

[Haplo781]

Would it work even better to have some associated with geographies? So Sindarin is almost a "forest humanoid common for elves and forest gnomes, and tabaxi", Khazad is almost a "hill/mountain humanoid common" for dwarves, tinker gnome, and whatnot, aquan for "underwater common", and then throw in giant, draconic, supernal, and infernal for.the iconic creatures. Could also suggest some geographical ones like southern trade common, North Island trade common, and the like that varied by campaign.

No need to reinvent the wheel. Just do Sylvan for elves, Deep Speech for dwarves, Common for halflings, etc.

 

[Haplo781]

Okay, seriously, it is worth actually reading the descriptions of the Backgrounds given, because every one of them explains exactly why the character with that Background learned that particular language.

This is D&D. People don't read the rules.

 

[Charlaquin]

No need to reinvent the wheel. Just do Sylvan for elves, Deep Speech for dwarves, Common for halflings, etc.

Those have historically been separate languages though. I think FR has actual names for its racial languages, I wouldn’t mind if those were used.