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

[soviet]

This gives me an opening to ask something I was pondering...

Should backgrounds develop, or are they things that happened in the past and there they are? If the later, then should the game award backgrounds as players do things? If you literally save the peasants in the kingdom from the horde of slavers that tried to take over, then why aren't you a "Hero of the People"? If you've spent ten levels of advancement and a year in game time sailing the seas, do you get "Sailor"? If not, what exactly did your (possibly) late teen/young adult character do that was more!?

Straight up I think the background traits are a great piece of design and I wish that WotC had built on them and published a whole lot more of them.

I think they help solve the disparity between casters and non-casters by giving even martial characters a way of impacting the game that isn't gated behind DM notes and rolls on a d20. I would give martial characters an additional background at level 1 (my fighter must have been doing something while the wizard was studying at Gandalf University). Obviously this goes hand in hand with having a whole bunch more available so that characters don't start to converge on each other's background too much.

I would also have a set of post-chargen background traits that reflect great deeds that the characters have done. Call them Legend Traits. Maybe all characters get one every 5 levels. I picture these as sort of non-combat feats in a way - Dragonslayer, Hero of Helms Deep, Ringbearer, etc. Things that have an impact on the social and exploration phases of the game but not on combat. Have you killed a dragon? You can take this trait, and you can always calm or entertain a crowd by telling the tale of your exploits. I also helped kill the dragon but didn't take the trait? OK well my contribution has been lost in the telling and I'm sort of the fifth Beatle, or maybe I just don't like to talk about it.

 

[mamba]

Other people have already brought up the Vistani. Depending on how the DM plays them and the PCs interact with them, they could be anywhere from "unavailable" to "available, but not unreliable," to "available and totally reliable."

I still have not seen any indication that they could reliably get a message to your contact on another plane, I am not sure they even can at all, and they still have no reason to, just because you have the criminal background

No; it's getting the message to the contact that's important.

having a way to do so is what is important

I've given multiple possible ways one can contact the contact. Magic, dead drops, establishing new messengers. All of these things are well within the capabilities of most adventuring parties.

you cannot just leave a message in a hollow trunk and it somehow makes it to your contact... Magic I disregarded because we are talking about the feature, not about ways to contact a person. For the same reason establishing new contacts is irrelevant, anyone can do that.

So it's completely relevant. The only reason you think it's not is because you seem to think the messenger is more important than the contact or what the contact does.

no, the messenger is relevant because that is how you get the message to your contact

The actual feature literally says that you can get a messenger "over great distances."

whatever they mean by that... it also says you know the messengers, so if you are in a place where you know no one, you are out of luck with that

Well, since the feature isn't about establishing new contacts (that's what roleplay is for) but about using the contact(s) you've made to liaise with criminal networks, I don't get your point.

I do not need a feature for the characters to get messages to people in organizations they have met in the game, or does that not work in your game unless someone chose the criminal background...

 

[Oofta]

@Oofta and @mamba, upthread @Faolyn agreed with this? How does it sound to you?

I think a lot of background features are dumb once your PC leaves their home region. It's why I grant other benefits. If the person even cares about their official background.

I try to have their backstory that we worked on before the first session matter. But background? Most people pick them for proficiencies in my experience.

 

[Cadence]

I think a lot of background features are dumb once your PC leaves their home region. It's why I grant other benefits. If the person even cares about their official background.

Would you do things like giving the person with sailor background a bonus or advantage on obviously ship related things? (Or not make them make a knowledge check on something basic)?

I try to have their backstory that we worked on before the first session matter. But background? Most people pick them for proficiencies in my experience.

Fair enough.

 

[Oofta]

Would you do things like giving the person with sailor background a bonus or advantage on obviously ship related things? (Or not make them make a knowledge check on something basic)?


Fair enough.

They will likely know things other people don't, get information or advantage on checks. For example they my know that certain navies use press gangs to supplement their crew, or knowledge about knots and types of goods moat likely to be in a shipment. Just depends on what's relevant.

 

[Maxperson]

yes, but at that point it is no longer so much a feature as a consequence of you roleplaying, and anyone could have done that (I allowed for it being somewhat easier for the criminal background, that was it)

Yes and no. Anyone can make a contact, but not anyone can use the background feature afterwards to get messages out as easily. With the background feature and a contact, you have to have a very good reason to say no it doesn't work. Even with the contact, the guy without the background might still fail to get his contact to send a message, especially if his contact isn't the sort to be a messenger.

 

[mamba]

@Oofta and @mamba, upthread @Faolyn agreed with this? How does it sound to you?

"Would it be accurate to say you lean on the side of it working if it is at all plausible" no, at all plausible is not enough. Me winning the lottery is plausible / not impossible, that does not mean someone winning every time they buy a ticket is not impossible. To me the feature is local, it even says 'you know the local messengers', when you are far enough away from 'local' then you no longer know of any messengers in that area, and you are not lucky enough that one of them just so happens to be in the same store as you, just when you need them.

As to "give them something even if its not what they want", they can establish new contacts in Ravenloft, that is something, is it not?

Finally "maybe signal that to the player before they invest a lot in it if you know its coming" yes, that is what session zero is for, but it is no guarantee for anything as the adventure could be pretty open ended. I said a while ago already that this is not about how the player ended up with the background, why they chose it despite the GM pointing this out / why the GM did not point it out. It simply is about whether the feature works at all times.

 

[Cadence]

"Would it be accurate to say you lean on the side of it working if it is at all plausible" no, at all plausible is not enough. Me winning the lottery is plausible / not impossible, that does not mean someone winning every time they buy a ticket is not impossible. To me the feature is local, it even says 'you know the local messengers', when you are far enough away from 'local' then you no longer know of any messengers in that area, and you are not lucky enough that one of them just so happens to be in the same store as you, just when you need them.

I think I would agree with you on plausible based on upthread.

 

[mamba]

With the background feature and a contact, you have to have a very good reason to say no it doesn't work.

when you write 'contact' you mean 'messenger' from the feature. If the character has established a messenger in game, then I generally would need a good reason for it to not work, regardless of whether the character has the background feature

 

[Maxperson]

when you write 'contact' you mean 'messenger' from the feature. If the character has established a messenger in game, then I generally would need a good reason for it to not work, regardless of whether the character has the background feature

I don't agree that contact = messenger for that ability. The contact says network of other criminals and can get messages to and from him. Why would you need a message from a messenger? The contact is just a criminal individual that is connected. He could be a fence, an enforcer, or even a mob boss. He can send messages or more likely tell someone else to send the message, but can also potentially set up meetings with other kinds of underworld individuals.