Indeed you could, but notice that a paladin involved in that situation still ends up making that choice - to pursue or not. Moral position staked. If the paladin pursues or seeks to corner them, then I'd say the player is definitely seeking to address the topic no matter what their stated position on backgrounding their oath.
And that's totally fair. The Dm has done his part. He's made orc babies not an issue. Now, if the player chooses to make it an issue, that's on the player. The player has obviously changed his mind here. But, since it's up to the player, what's the problem? If the Paladin player doesn't want to deal with it, he lets them go and nothing more is said. And, implied here, that choice doesn't then bite him on the ass either.
To a certain degree, there's a scale of shirking costs. A really mundane animal companion like a horse, dog, hawk, or even wolf are usually pretty compatible with settlements. Bears and wild cats are less so, but not that hard to have them lay low in a civilized area without causing a stir. But there's no way in hell I'm going to let a character put something really exotic on background.
"Oh, yeah, that's just my allosaurus. Don't mind him."
Shyeah, right.
Exotic screams complications. Don't want the complications? Don't invite them.
Why not? Presuming there's no mechanical benefit from the companion (now allosaurus is a bit on the big side, so, I'm assuming a high level campaign), what difference does it make if the companion is backgrounded? Realistically, how much of a difference is it actually going to make in the game? Without Backgrounding, the player spends time ensuring that the allosaurus isn't a problem - maybe hiding it somewhere. Which is fine. But, after the fifteenth time that he has to hide his pet, it gets a tad repetitive.
What are we actually losing here? It's not like this is a balance issue at all. Having an Allosaurus, for example, is perfectly allowed by the 3e rules for druid companions. It's already balanced in the class which assumes that you are going to have a pet of a certain beefiness by a certain level - whether that's an upgraded basic pet or a new, more exotic one. I'm kinda failing to see the problem here. At the end of the day, it's going to wind up being exactly the same - the pet gets hidden and the group moves on because we don't want to waste the table's time futzing about with it every time they go into a town.
Answering the bear part because it illustrates the matter quite nicely.
You have now moved from " its background from the game" to its backgrounder when I want it to be. Your bear can still apparently be benefit in the woods (help in fights, track be scents etc) but when having that bear might be an impediment in town you get to cut away those deficits that would naturally as part of the setting get in your way. No need to worry about the obvious hubbub a bear in town might cause when that's the goal- cake with eat-it-too icing, mmmmm.
Just like apparently theft--proof motorcycles for free in VtM, you are not backgrounding the bike, just the bad stuff that comes with having a bike - it seems.
Seems to me this is the kind of "gaming the system" kind of thing some commenters were concerned about.
In our last dnd game, when we were attacked in caravan on the road the raiders killed the horses and when we abandoned those wagons we lost a lot of gear... man if only we had backgrounded our caravans against theft
Sure enough the Enterpise should have been backgrounded against takeover by aliens.
Yup, you got me [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION]. It's all about power gaming despite example after example showing that it's not.
The player just wanted a cool bike. He liked the image. But, he didn't want to spend table time screwing around protecting it. So, we placed it in the background and off we go. Whoopee. He's got a motorcycle. Man, in a game with immortal vampires who can rip the side out of a tank, that's totally game breaking.
But, let's run with the Enterprise example. Say we're running an SF game where the PC's have a spaceship. But, the players don't want to futz about with the spaceship being the center of attention. It's just something they use to go from A to B and a base of operations. Kind of like how no one steals/takes over the Millenium Falcon. Or Luke's X-Wing. Or any number of other space ships that appear in SF serials. How is the game harmed by placing the Enterprise in the background?
The players are telling you, again, quite clearly, that they don't want the action of the campaign taking place on their spaceship. They want stuff to happen "out there". Away missions, exploration, that sort of thing. The Enterprise then just becomes a starting place for adventures, not the site of adventures itself - just like Luke's X-Wing or, really, the Millenium Falcon. Or, most of the time, the Tardis. While there are a few episodes of Doctor Who which focus on the Tardis, the vast majority don't. The Tardis is the starting place and the ending place. But, most of the time, it's not the locus of adventure. Would Doctor Who fail as a series if you replaced the episodes that focus on the Tardis as the locus of adventure?
Is this really too much of a limitation on a campaign? Are people really that incapable of building a Star Trek campaign that doesn't feature the Enterprise being taken over by aliens?
