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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6026086" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>This is something that we should try to keep in mind always.</p><p></p><p>A 5e background is NOT culture. </p><p></p><p>"Cultures" are what classes, specialties, spells, equipment, and why not also backgrounds, are <em>more </em>common <em>on average</em>. Not "common to everyone".</p><p></p><p>It might be possible to define a "cultural background" which in fact tries to capture the average. But it will fail on two accounts at least:</p><p></p><p>- since a background is 3 skills only by default, a "cultural background" has only a limited room to capture that average, and risk of cliche</p><p>- fails at answering the question "what do you do for a living?", answer: "I'm a French!" <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Technically true: it's been stated at nauseam by the 5e designers that the game works perfectly without specialties and/or background.</p><p></p><p>Practically false: just because it can work without them doesn't mean that people will not use them, and I can bet that 99% of the gaming groups will, for the simple reason that both skills and feats (rather than backgrounds and specialties) add a <em>very minimal</em> complexity to the game, but increase variety a lot.</p><p></p><p>If humans were given bonus skills and feats, this would work for 99% of the groups, and it would be a piece of cake for the PHB to suggest an alternative for the 1% gaming groups that don't use them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6026086, member: 1465"] This is something that we should try to keep in mind always. A 5e background is NOT culture. "Cultures" are what classes, specialties, spells, equipment, and why not also backgrounds, are [I]more [/I]common [I]on average[/I]. Not "common to everyone". It might be possible to define a "cultural background" which in fact tries to capture the average. But it will fail on two accounts at least: - since a background is 3 skills only by default, a "cultural background" has only a limited room to capture that average, and risk of cliche - fails at answering the question "what do you do for a living?", answer: "I'm a French!" :D Technically true: it's been stated at nauseam by the 5e designers that the game works perfectly without specialties and/or background. Practically false: just because it can work without them doesn't mean that people will not use them, and I can bet that 99% of the gaming groups will, for the simple reason that both skills and feats (rather than backgrounds and specialties) add a [I]very minimal[/I] complexity to the game, but increase variety a lot. If humans were given bonus skills and feats, this would work for 99% of the groups, and it would be a piece of cake for the PHB to suggest an alternative for the 1% gaming groups that don't use them. [/QUOTE]
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