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

[Oofta]

The list of "background features" in the Character Origins UA doesn't include a 2014 style background feature, nor do the sample backgrounds. Instead, there's a 1st-level feat on the order of the Lucky feat. Of course, the Haunted One background doesn’t appear in the playtest to use as an example, but take the Sailor background. The 2014 Sailor has the background feature Ship’s Passage which allows the Sailor to call in a favor with former crewmates to obtain free passage on a sailing ship for the party in exchange for their assistance of the crew during the voyage. It’s a limited but tangible benefit which connects the Sailor to the world through crewmates with which they’ve formerly served. The UA, on the other hand, gives no indication the Sailor can obtain any such benefit. The fluff-text is limited to backstory prompts that could possibly be leveraged to recall information about undersea lore or posit various connections with ship’s crews or the inhabitants of ports of call, so basically what you’d already expect from the 2014 Sailor’s backstory, and there’s literally no benefit specified upon which the player can rely. The UA sample Sailor also gets the Tavern Brawler feat, giving benefits to using unarmed strikes and allowing using furniture as clubs, so some minor combat-related benefits instead of a player-facing ability to posit and draw upon connections with former crewmates.

I don’t use the recent books you mention. What’s being compared here is the 2014 core books and 2024 editions of those books as revealed through the UA playtest.

But whether or not the background features were ever useful or not has always been up to the DM and depends on details of the campaign being played and the current situation. A DM could potentially make them available and useful but they don't have to. For example, I'm playing a Curse of Strahd campaign, my Sage feature being able to find hidden knowledge simply isn't an option because we're stuck in Barovia where I have no contacts and no way of knowing where to look. I would tell someone the same thing if they had criminal contacts or the sailor background. It's not Faerun and most background features simply don't apply.

The new background feats do away with a bad idea that was still always at the discretion of the DM and replaces them with concrete benefits.

 

[Maxperson]

I see. They were compatible, but the time frame of the release meant they didn't really have to be compatible.

Right. I may be misremembering, but I don't think they remade everything. That said, by and large it was replaced very quickly.

 

[Parmandur]

The list of "background features" in the Character Origins UA doesn't include a 2014 style background feature, nor do the sample backgrounds. Instead, there's a 1st-level feat on the order of the Lucky feat. Of course, the Haunted One background doesn’t appear in the playtest to use as an example, but take the Sailor background. The 2014 Sailor has the background feature Ship’s Passage which allows the Sailor to call in a favor with former crewmates to obtain free passage on a sailing ship for the party in exchange for their assistance of the crew during the voyage. It’s a limited but tangible benefit which connects the Sailor to the world through crewmates with which they’ve formerly served. The UA, on the other hand, gives no indication the Sailor can obtain any such benefit. The fluff-text is limited to backstory prompts that could possibly be leveraged to recall information about undersea lore or posit various connections with ship’s crews or the inhabitants of ports of call, so basically what you’d already expect from the 2014 Sailor’s backstory, and there’s literally no benefit specified upon which the player can rely. The UA sample Sailor also gets the Tavern Brawler feat, giving benefits to using unarmed strikes and allowing using furniture as clubs, so some minor combat-related benefits instead of a player-facing ability to posit and draw upon connections with former crewmates.

I don’t use the recent books you mention. What’s being compared here is the 2014 core books and 2024 editions of those books as revealed through the UA playtest.

But the flavor text provides just as much as the 2014 presentation?

 

[Hriston]

Thanks for your time!

I wasn't saying I spent a lot of time writing the post. Just that a long time elapsed before it was posted because there were periods of time in the last few days when the only device to which I had access was one on which I could not write or post messages on enworld. I still don't know what the reason for this is.

This flavour text could be changed, so it encompasses the heart of darkness feature.

I don't know if you're just being optimistic. I mean, it could be changed to encompass the feature, but the Character Origins UA indicates that such features will not be encompassed by the flavor text. If the UA is an example of what they're intending to publish, it doesn't bode well for the continuation of 2014-style background features. Of course, adjudicating from flavor text that encompasses the feature would not be an example of adjudicating "without the feature", so I'm not sure how it's a response to what I've written.

I don't disagree. My experience sadly says, without forming an agreement, the feature gets always forgotten. I take the blame on me though.

I agree it's the player's job to advocate for their character and remind the table of their feature. But at least with the written feature to reference, forming an agreement about what happens in the fiction at that point is fairly straightforward. Without the feature, any agreement has to be worked out from competing conceptions of the character's background.

I have always seen background features as "downtime" or "exploration" features. Maybe I am wrong.

I think HoD falls very much in the social interaction pillar because it gives you special privileges when interacting with commoners. I think the background features in general are meant for use in adventuring as well as downtime.

The other DM could have been me.

Okay, and that's your prerogative, but the willingness of "some DMs" to invalidate a feature isn't a fault of the feature.

 

[Hriston]

But whether or not the background features were ever useful or not has always been up to the DM and depends on details of the campaign being played and the current situation. A DM could potentially make them available and useful but they don't have to. For example, I'm playing a Curse of Strahd campaign, my Sage feature being able to find hidden knowledge simply isn't an option because we're stuck in Barovia where I have no contacts and no way of knowing where to look. I would tell someone the same thing if they had criminal contacts or the sailor background. It's not Faerun and most background features simply don't apply.

First, citing extraplanar adventure as an example is a corner case. Second, I have a hard time believing Barovia is completely lacking in either "a library, scriptorium, university, or a sage or other learned person or creature." Finding out what or who and where those things are shouldn't be all that difficult for a sage.

The new background feats do away with a bad idea that was still always at the discretion of the DM and replaces them with concrete benefits.

I don't agree the game needs to be protected from bad DMing, especially not with a boring redesign like this.

(edited for spelling)

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

First, siting extraplanar adventure as an example is a corner case. Second, I have a hard time believing Barovia is completely lacking in either "a library, scriptorium, university, or a sage or other learned person or creature." Finding out what or who and where those things are shouldn't be all that difficult for a sage.

While some things matching that description do exist in Barovia, if you're playing CoS you'll run into them as part of the plot anyway, making the Sage background feature largely redundant.

Which of course isn't all that different from playing any published adventure - if the party requires some information to progress in the story, the adventure will also provide a way to learn it. Many background features are far more impactful when playing a sandbox game.

 

[Zardnaar]

While some things matching that description do exist in Barovia, if you're playing CoS you'll run into them as part of the plot anyway, making the Sage background feature largely redundant.

Which of course isn't all that different from playing any published adventure - if the party requires some information to progress in the story, the adventure will also provide a way to learn it. Many background features are far more impactful when playing a sandbox game.

I woukd probably grant inspiration if Sage background cane up in say CoS.

 

[Yaarel]

But the flavor text provides just as much as the 2014 presentation?

Yeah. The narrative for the background matters.

Also, in my own games, the character sheet biography section expands the "Bond" to include Family and Friends, Teammate, Contacts, and Rivals, in addition to Languages (which I view as a kind of Bond), Communities, Mentors, Patrons, Significant Places, and Heirlooms. In other words, a Bond is a "person, place, or thing" and any and all are possible.

Especially the Mentor and Contacts are useful for the background narrative.

 

[Hriston]

But the flavor text provides just as much as the 2014 presentation?

I can't tell if your question is rhetorical, but no, it doesn't. It's missing all kinds of stuff which I mostly explained in the post you quoted and in other posts in this thread. Have you even read the material I'm talking about?

 

[Hriston]

While some things matching that description do exist in Barovia, if you're playing CoS you'll run into them as part of the plot anyway, making the Sage background feature largely redundant.

Which of course isn't all that different from playing any published adventure - if the party requires some information to progress in the story, the adventure will also provide a way to learn it. Many background features are far more impactful when playing a sandbox game.

I haven't read Curse of Strahd, so I can't really comment, but the way you describe it and other published adventures, it sounds like a complete railroad. That isn't a fault of the background feature.