D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[James Gasik]

Depends on the meaning of "substantial" I'm guessing. (Were Holmes->Moldvay->Metntzer, 3->3.5, 4->Ess, etc.. substantial?).

Sometimes? I mean let's look at 1e and 2e, which are very close to one another at first glance. But not only did you have different ideas going into the final products, the entire paradigm of what D&D is had changed behind the scenes, to the point you'll find people who insist 2e is not AD&D.

 

[Raiztt]

Sometimes? I mean let's look at 1e and 2e, which are very close to one another at first glance. But not only did you have different ideas going into the final products, the entire paradigm of what D&D is had changed behind the scenes, to the point you'll find people who insist 2e is not AD&D.

My limited experience in the old school suggests that almost everything before 3e is compatible with minimal effort.

 

[James Gasik]

My limited experience in the old school suggests that almost everything before 3e is compatible with minimal effort.

Mechanically? It's not super hard. But at the same time, you go from a paradigm where Elf is a class and all weapons do d6 damage to one where you can play Space Orcs with muskets and be multiclassed Aasimar Ranger/Wizards!

 

[Lanefan]

My limited experience in the old school suggests that almost everything before 3e is compatible with minimal effort.

Mechanically, more or less yes.

But 2e had a very different underlying design philosohpy than did 0e or 1e or BX, largely driven by corporate overreaction to the Satanic panic.

 

[Oofta]

Game rules have to be written at least somewhat agnostically, edge cases are what the DM is for. "Believability" on the other hand, is not a universal thing, especially when applied to a given fantasy game world.

But the newer background features handle the edge cases easily by getting rid of the background features that require a reputation like noble or pirate. You get a feat, some ideas on backstory. When I create or modify a background feature it's going to be things like advantage in certain situations. It's never going to have issues like if you pull a It's a Wonderful Life where the PC with a noble background gets to see what life would be like if they were never born.

 

[James Gasik]

But the newer background features handle the edge cases easily by getting rid of the background features that require a reputation like noble or pirate. You get a feat, some ideas on backstory. When I create or modify a background feature it's going to be things like advantage in certain situations. It's never going to have issues like if you pull a It's a Wonderful Life where the PC with a noble background gets to see what life would be like if they were never born.

Well yeah, we know that the reaction to 2014 Backgrounds has been lackluster, so they changed gears. And presumably will continue to do so, because the player says "hey wow, I'm a pirate, it says I can do X" and the DM might say either "that's great, I can totally work that into my campaign set in the sands of Anauroch" or "yeah, uh, that's just not going to work, sorry."

And that's just not a workable scenario. My stance on this has been simple since my first post. If you don't want to work with a given background (or can't), then don't let someone take it in the first place. See, the backgrounds are the players telling you what kinds of things they want to see in the game, what directions they hope it goes into, and how they want their character to plug into the game- or, they just wanted certain proficiencies.

If it's the former, the issue comes down to if you're a DM who plans the game around the players, or one who expects the players to plan around the game. If it's the latter, it's on the player if they randomly look at their sheet and remember "oh yeah, I'm a pirate! I can get us a ship!" without preamble- obviously, taking a background should involve a conversation with the DM and the player to set expectations.*

Now if you are a DM who doesn't plan their game around the players, absolutely, the 2014 backgrounds don't work. At which point you tell the players that fact, have them make custom backgrounds, and get on with playing.

*Someone upthread made a comment to the effect of they didn't see why they should work with the players to give them what they wanted. If you're that kind of DM, again, 2014 backgrounds aren't for you. But my counter to that is, why is this such a bad thing? Is your campaign really that inflexible? Why is it that way?

If your players are horrid, wretched goblins who take, take, take and demand more, why are you DMing for them?

Time for another one of my endless gaming stories: a friend of mine has his own custom game world that he's been fiddling with since high school. He has a lot of odd things in his setting that most of the players have never seen, since all of the campaigns have centered around one continent.

One day, a player who had fun with his Goliath character in 4e asked if he could play a Goliath. My friend said, without skipping a beat, "There's no place for Goliaths in my game". And I asked why is that? You have all these other strange and wonderful cultures and races (species) in your game. You just told me last week you're thinking about adding a nation of dragon-worshippers who think being part dragon is the coolest thing ever to this desert region. What's wrong with adding Goliaths to some mountain range? They could be giant-kin, descended from earth elementals, exiles from another dimension (his in-universe origin for Orcs and Goblins) or the product of magical experimentation. What do you mean there's no room for them?"

"Well, I don't like Goliaths."

"Ok, so say that then."

Ironically, in the latest version of his setting, "goliaths" are a subrace of his Oni race. Go figure.

 

[Oofta]

Well yeah, we know that the reaction to 2014 Backgrounds has been lackluster, so they changed gears. And presumably will continue to do so, because the player says "hey wow, I'm a pirate, it says I can do X" and the DM might say either "that's great, I can totally work that into my campaign set in the sands of Anauroch" or "yeah, uh, that's just not going to work, sorry."

And that's just not a workable scenario. My stance on this has been simple since my first post. If you don't want to work with a given background (or can't), then don't let someone take it in the first place. See, the backgrounds are the players telling you what kinds of things they want to see in the game, what directions they hope it goes into, and how they want their character to plug into the game- or, they just wanted certain proficiencies.

If it's the former, the issue comes down to if you're a DM who plans the game around the players, or one who expects the players to plan around the game. If it's the latter, it's on the player if they randomly look at their sheet and remember "oh yeah, I'm a pirate! I can get us a ship!" without preamble- obviously, taking a background should involve a conversation with the DM and the player to set expectations.*

Now if you are a DM who doesn't plan their game around the players, absolutely, the 2014 backgrounds don't work. At which point you tell the players that fact, have them make custom backgrounds, and get on with playing.

*Someone upthread made a comment to the effect of they didn't see why they should work with the players to give them what they wanted. If you're that kind of DM, again, 2014 backgrounds aren't for you. But my counter to that is, why is this such a bad thing? Is your campaign really that inflexible? Why is it that way?

I don't ever have a campaign fully planned out. The players decide what they're going to do, where they're going to go. Sometimes they go to the desert, sometimes they decide to go to a different plane of existence or an interesting story line comes into play where it makes sense to end up in an alternate universe. Maybe the BBEG does a curse where the world exists as if they had never been born. Who knows. But I'll never guarantee a background feature as written in the PHB will work.

It's not that my campaign is inflexible, it's that outside of some broad outlines and potential actors along with details about who's who and locale for the next few games I simply don't plan things out.

If your players are horrid, wretched goblins who take, take, take and demand more, why are you DMing for them?

I have, on occasion, had players who would always push the limits. Eventually we were going to not invite them to the next campaign before we decided to move, but I've had players who would absolutely want the letter of the background feature whether it made sense in context or not.

I think my approach is actually more flexible. If the group ends up in the desert, the sailor can't find passage but they'll have a better understanding of knots and may have a better idea of how trade routes work.

 

[James Gasik]

I think my approach is actually more flexible. If the group ends up in the desert, the sailor can't find passage but they'll have a better understanding of knots and may have a better idea of how trade routes work.

So it really comes down to not the background, but the rigidly defined feature for you. That's fair, the features probably should have been suggestions for what you could possibly accomplish. From this point of view, I can see why some people take umbrage with 2014 backgrounds- the issue isn't that they exist or that players might want them, it's that the book says they must be utilized in exactly this way.

I'm reminded of the old Secondary Skills Table, where instead of giving players set proficiencies, you said "ok, you were a Blacksmith, so you can do Blacksmith things".

 

[Micah Sweet]

Mechanically? It's not super hard. But at the same time, you go from a paradigm where Elf is a class and all weapons do d6 damage to one where you can play Space Orcs with muskets and be multiclassed Aasimar Ranger/Wizards!

But at the table level, where it matters, the conversion can be done quite easily. You can use whatever paradigm you want because the rules mostly stayed the same.

 

[CreamCloud0]

See, the backgrounds are the players telling you what kinds of things they want to see in the game, what directions they hope it goes into, and how they want their character to plug into the game- or, they just wanted certain proficiencies.

or the secret third option of 'that was just the background that was most apropriate considering my character's backstory'