Level Up (A5E) Are you still including Personality Traits/Ideals/Bonds/Flaws?

[Faolyn]

Making a sample Herald before I do the survey and again noticed that none of the new backgrounds include them, even under the "make your own" section. Are you simply talking about those in their own section, divorced from the backgrounds, or are you not including them at all?

 

[Morrus]

We have Destiny instead.

 

[Faolyn]

Mmm, I don't like that. The nice thing about the Traits, etc. is that they were nonmechanical ways to flesh out your character. Not everything in a character is about their Destiny. Some of it is just how they deal with the everyday stuff.

Oh well. It's not difficult to include both things.

 

[Morrus]

Mmm, I don't like that.

Sorry. It was our most popular playtest document!

 

[Faolyn]

Sorry. It was our most popular playtest document!

No, I mean, I quite like the Destinies. I just don't like not including the Personality bits because of them. I'll definitely be using Destinies (assuming I can get my friends willing to try them, of course; they're a bit stodgy at times).

 

[GKEnialb]

I agree. The Destinies are great, but they don't completely cover the depth of personality traits/ideals/bonds/flaws. Having both would be awesome; having just destinies is not nearly as strong (and I'd likely mix the two rulesets in that case).

 

[Xethreau]

Backgrounds feature a connection, which is comprable to a bond. Destinies include a motivation, which is comprable to an ideal. The backgrounds also feature a heirloom which is sort of a tangible version of both.

Personality traits and flaws are basic characterization. I imagine players of a5e have built characters before.

Also, as mechanic which triggers inspiration, they just don't work. Part of Our goal was to replace the ideals bonds and flaws mechanic with something that actually worked for creating a mechanical incentive to role-play well.

 

[Faolyn]

Also, as mechanic which triggers inspiration, they just don't work. Part of Our goal was to replace the ideals bonds and flaws mechanic with something that actually worked for creating a mechanical incentive to role-play well.

No, but they were good for roleplaying. Maybe it's just my group, but we're really good at RPing without mechanical incentives.

First, don't misunderstand me--I like the Destinies quite a lot, and will definitely use them (assuming I can get the rest of my players to agree). But I, personally, have found that while setting goals for my characters is very good, having a "what's going on in my life right now" bit helps enormously for determining, well, personality.

However, because the Personality/Ideals/Bonds/Flaws is nonmechanical, it can be used in addition to the Destiny.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

No, but they were good for roleplaying. Maybe it's just my group, but we're really good at RPing without mechanical incentives.

For an alternate perspective, in all the many many tables I have played 5e at I have never noticed anyone mention their Personality, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws. I mean, maybe some players find them useful to keep things in mind in their own heads, but they don't seem to come up at all.

Myself, I never bother filling them out on my character sheets. Usually I have a much deeper idea of what my characters are like than those few sentences describe. To me, they are both too much to bother writing down, and too little to tell me much about the character.

By all means, you should keep using them if you like them, but I for one wouldn't miss them.