D&D (2024) Bonus languages in One D&D backgrounds goes contrary to their other goals

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

some suggestions like Thieve’s Cant for Criminals seems appropriate (missing why you don’t) as a suggestion.

Mostly historical. For the bulk of D&D's history, thieves cant was emphatically exclusive to one class.

Now the only people with a secret language are druids, which seems implausible to me: Dandelion Starflower is better at keeping secrets than the Mob?

But you're right, if I was creating D&D for the first time today, I wouldn't be that precious with thieves cant.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes.

Then from where should PCs get languages?

Everyone did fine with backgrounds not giving languages by default for eight years.

Backgrounds did give languages though.

2024 characters will get languages from their species and maybe their class already.

Race doesn’t grant languages in the UA. Except Dragonborn, which I don’t think should, in much the same way that I don’t think dwarf should grant tool proficiencies. Language is cultural, not biological.

But WotC isn't saying with the 2014 backgrounds that "if you're a gladiator, you obviously have a lot of contact with orcs," which goes directly against what they've been doing with orcs recently, including this UA.

They are saying no such thing. They are giving one example of a gladiator background which speaks orc. Your gladiator character might speak elvish instead. Backgrounds are entirely floating, they are just giving examples of possible combinations so people who just want to pick one and be done with it can do so.

Imagine a D&D Modern game where the Chef background automatically came with Spanish. You could make an argument for it, sure (a whole lot of Latin American folks in the kitchen of nearly every restaurant in the US), but you can also see why it's problematic by default, I imagine.

That would be a problem, if backgrounds were fixed. But they aren’t. They’re just examples.

 

[Haplo781]

Mostly historical. For the bulk of D&D's history, thieves cant was emphatically exclusive to one class.

Now the only people with a secret language are druids, which seems implausible to me: Dandelion Starflower is better at keeping secrets than the Mob?

But you're right, if I was creating D&D for the first time today, I wouldn't be that precious with thieves cant.

Drop Druidic, replace with Sylvan. Make it a valid selection for bonus language.

 

[Charlaquin]

Mostly historical. For the bulk of D&D's history, thieves cant was emphatically exclusive to one class.

Now the only people with a secret language are druids,

Druidic is explicitly one of the options you can pick for your background language. None of the example backgrounds happen to grant it (and I think a hermit or outlander type background that granted it would probably be a good idea) but it’s not true that Druidic is exclusive to Druids in this packet. Your Laborer could know Druidic if you want.

 

[Charlaquin]

Drop Druidic, replace with Sylvan. Make it a valid selection for bonus language.

Druidic is a valid selection for bonus language in the packet.

 

[Malmuria]

I totally agree, and there has been some discussion on twitter about this. The sample backgrounds, as constructed, lean into existing dnd tropes and conventions. I can see why they did this, as some people really like those conventions, but it undermines their attempts to open up if not do away with those same conventions. So whereas previous editions might describe Orcs as "brutish warriors," here we get a gladiator archtype that knows Orcish (and for bonus ickiness, they get "savage" attack and galdiators are historically associated with slavery).

There is huge potential in backgrounds doing collaborative worldbuilding work, but not if they just rely on the same tropes. They should emphasize that backgrounds are specific and meant to correspond not just to general archtypes, but your character's origin in a particular setting. So the basic rule would be to craft your own, and then a sidebar they walk you through the process with setting-specific examples. You're not just an "urchin," you are urchin from waterdeep. What is waterdeep like, specifically? Why are there urchins in this city and how do urchins fit into that very specific setting? Or, you are an entertainer in Theros. What is the role of entertainment in that setting? What musical instruments are specifically popular there?

The way out of sterotypes is through specificity and worldbuilding. Admittedly, this is hard to present in an economical fashion and to standardize into a set of easy to pick up examples. But it's necessary if they want these aspects of the game to become less problematic. Background creation should be part of a session 0 procedure through which players contribute to defining aspects of the setting in these small ways. In the OSR, this is referred to as "anti-canon" worldbuilding. Or, take a page from dungeon world, and allow players to fill in some of the "blanks" on the conceptual map of the world.

 

[edosan]

I'd love to see them make it very bold and clear that they expect people to make their own and then give only three examples. A number large enough to illustrate their process but small enough that no one can mistake the intention that they are only examples.

It just seems clunky, presenting the formula in an easy to miss prelude then tossing out a bunch of “examples” that 90% of readers are going to see at the only choices available. I’d rather streamline it by making all these decision points steps on the chargen process and the have them pick a background for thematic reasons. Telling people to pick a background of guard then saying “now, you don’t really have to take Dwarven if you don't want to” seems like unnecessary steps compared to “pick a language, then pick a background.”

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think that these are just example backgrounds, that there will be very few example backgrounds in the coming PHB,
Or may be a table that generates random backgrounds.

Personally I would like a random life history generator of a more extensive nature to the one in Xanathar's with instruction to select ASI's languages and feats.

 

[Haplo781]

Druidic is a valid selection for bonus language in the packet.

Then what's the problem?

 

[Charlaquin]

It just seems clunky, presenting the formula in an easy to miss prelude then tossing out a bunch of “examples” that 90% of readers are going to see at the only choices available. I’d rather streamline it by making all these decision points steps on the chargen process and the have them pick a background for thematic reasons. Telling people to pick a background of guard then saying “now, you don’t really have to take Dwarven if you don't want to” seems like unnecessary steps compared to “pick a language, then pick a background.”

I’ve seen a lot of people making this argument, but I haven’t seen anyone actually saying they missed the rules for building your own background or that they see the examples as the only options available.